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Ethics summary
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L1: INTRODUCTION TO ETHICSBusiness Science focuses on organizations:
- Organizations as agents
If organizations are agents, their behaviour can be evaluated on
ethical grounds: which of their actions and decisions are ethically
justifiable?
- Organizations as environments.
If organizations are environments (i.e. structured groups of agents),
then how does the organizational structure affect the behaviour of the
individual agents within the organization and outside the organization
from an ethical perspective?
Thus, both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions.
Business Science focuses on markets:
- Markets as environments in which organizations operate;
If markets are environments in which organizations operate, how do
organizations balance their need to be competitive with their ethical
standing? And how should markets be regulated in a way that makes
it possible for organizations to find a balance?
- Markets as coordination systems alternative to organizations.
If markets are alternative to organizations, then in which ways this
difference affects the forms of evaluations (including ethical
evaluations) practiced within and outside organizations?
Again, both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions.
Business Science focuses on markets in society:
- The impact of markets on society;
- The impact of society on markets.
To which extent current societal values are affected (or should be
affected) by “what is good for the markets”?
To which extent should regulations on markets reflect societal values?
,Ethical decision making = the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a way that is
consistent with ethical principles. This entails:
1. Recognizing alternatives
= what are the options, what are all the possible actions you can take.
This is not trivial at all. It is often hard to know your options. You might not see some, because of
assumptions. The way we see alternatives depends on the underlying ethical or social thoughts. And
unless we reflect them, this will result in missing certain viewpoints and thus possibilities.
2. Recognizing stakeholders
= who are affected by our actions and how.
3. Recognizing consequences
Not only the economic outcome but also the ethical (It hurting people rights, helping etc.)
- Decision-making processes are typically multi-dimensional. Hence, decisions involve clashes of
legitimate rights or values or different principles and notions of what is good. Core to ethical
decision-making is the ability to balance clashing values.
No clash of values = no ethical problem. Because then there is nothing to discuss on ethics, if we all
agree on the right action to take.
How can we identify what is ethical behavior?
Ethics is not the same as:
- acting according to one’s feelings/emotions
- acting according to religious beliefs
- abiding by the law (following the law)
- following social conventions /culturally accepted norms
- acting on the basis of scientific knowledge
Thus, although feelings, beliefs, legal and social norms, and true facts and evidence might provide
valuable input to consider, they often are not enough, and ethics cannot be reduced to any of these
aspects.
Is there an unquestionable basis on which we can ground our ethical principles?
Different thinkers provide different answers:
- Aristotle: do what brings you closer to virtue.
- Kant: do what respects human fundamental dignity and self- determination.
- Utilitarianism: do what provides the most good and the least harm. We should not consider
anything other than the outcome, consequences of our actions.
- Rawls: do what is necessary to “share one another’s fate”. Understanding our position in society,
we share fate, fairness.
- Communitarianism: obligations to our communities. We have a background, history --> community.
These general ethical principles might clash with each other when we try to apply them to concrete
situations.
, L2: ARISTOTLE
Ethics = a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values + the discipline dealing with
what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit”.
“All virtue is summed up in dealing justly”.
“He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be
either a beast or a god”.
Ethics for Aristotle – personal level
- Ethics is not a theoretical discipline
-We are asking not because we want to satisfy our curiosity, but because by knowing we will be more
capable to reach it.
- Give answer to the practical question: How should men best live?
- Give answer to questions such as: What is the highest good? --> what is our highest goal in life.
- And these questions are always connected with politics.
He said that the goal of political science is the human good.
Highest good
Eudaimonia (eu = good, daimōn = spirit) = happiness, flourishing, well-being, welfare.
Aristotle: “Verbally there is a very general agreement; for both ordinary men and wise men say that it
is [eudaimonia], and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but about what
[eudaimonia] is they disagree, and the many do not give the same account as the wise.”
- there is a disagreement, different people give different answer on what it means.
What could eudaimonia consist of? Pleasure, wealth, honour or having virtue?
Pleasure is not the highest good, because it is only fulfilling the worst.
Wealth is not the highest good, because it is a tool to obtain something else.
Honour is not the highest good, because it is not internal. It could be taken away. The highest good
should come from within.
Virtues alone is not the highest good, because adding more can make life better.
Thus, according to Aristotle, the highest good is
1. Self- sufficient
2. Desirable for itself,
3. Not desirable for the sake of some other good, and
4. All other goods are desirable for its sake. You cant augment the highest good, no matter what you
add it remains the same. All other things exist for the highest good.
Hence, the highest good is the ultimate purpose, or end.
Telos = goal, end, purpose, function.
Teleological: relative to the purpose.
Goodness resides in the fulfilment of one’s telos.
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