3BA International Business: Summary Business and Customer Ethics
What is Ethics?
1. What is Ethics?
Very difficult to say what Ethics is about. Ethics is about moral principles, it is always about something personal, what we do, how we understand
each other. Ethics is individually based.
Ethics is all about living life as a huma, living life as we ought to live.
The little prince is a booklet published during the war, it was forbidden in France because of the truth inside. It is about a young prince who visits
various planets, including earth and has themes of freedom, loneliness, love and is the most printed book after the Bible.
- Start with a dedication: “All Grown-ups were children first, but few of them remember it”
- The book tries to tell us that what we think of the world, what we make up in theory is defective, it is already telling u to much.
There is no fixed theory to explain what Ethics is about. It is always escaping our reflective grasp. It’s about reflection, thinking, something we are
and express as a human being. Theory is not everything, it’s a fixed idea and many theories have not been able to stand up against criticism. Some
ethical theories even came up with something that has nothing to do with Ethics.
When talking about Ethics, we talk about a box and what is in the box is not for us to see, to grasp, to feel even though it is about us. The weird
thing about ethics is thar we cannot lay our hands on what it is about.
Its also about humanity, about being Human. But what is it that makes us human? -> If you ask that to different people, we would all come up with
different ideas and in the end we would not agree with each other. Everyone has different opinions -> We cannot really make a claim, what it is
that makes us human.
2. Introduction: What is (Applied) Ethics?
If we use the word Ethics, we have to deal with 3 ideas
1) Normativity: designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable and other as bad, undesirable -> determining what is morally right and
wrong.
Is something really obligated in life? -> Can we be so free that we can hold the idea that we can dispose of our life as we please? Are we free
beings? Is our biology predominant?
We are always acting, when speaking, sitting even when you are doing nothing. Normativity is all around when you discus ethics. About what we
have to do, our norms.
2) Humanity: Humanity is about you and I. About what it is that makes us Human.
3) Individuality: Humans are individuals, no one is alike, everyone is special and has different characteristics (What is it that makes me, me?). Its
about the tragic about being a human, cause we can’t chance places. This individuality makes that we cannot properly define Humanity because
we are all different. We are species of individuality (we are all our own). The only one who is me is me -> We cannot share that, even though we
would like to). You would like to go into the minds of people, to know what they are thinking but you can. The same goes for suffering -> you can
talk about your suffering but no one can suffer in your place. Human species are destined to be individuals.
We are ourselves and we cannot share that.
What do these things mean?
Speaking of Individuality is Martin Heidegger
- “Geworfenheit” -> Throwness (geworpenheid) -> being thrown into the world as the basic fact of being a human. It is the idea that you have
been thrown into the world, we haven’t called ourselves into life, we haven’t given permission to be here, you have literally being thrown into
life. We have to accept that we are here. A life is given to use and we didn’t ask for it.
- “Jemeinigkeit” -> Je (=each) and mein (=mine) -> Characteristic of human beings is that they are Jeimeinig.
Each-ones-own-ness -> The idea that each human being is his own, we are all unique and different.
“In thrownness the fact is revealed that Da-sein, as my Da-sein and this Da-sein, is always already in a definite world and together with a definite
range of definite inner worldly beings”
“Forward” or “striving nature” of human beings (Soren Kierkegaard: tried to come to terms with basic features of human life)
- He said that Human beings have a forward or striving nature. If you try to abstract for the things that you do every day e.g. Getting up, putting
make-up on, eating, drinking, showering, sleeping, cycling,.. -> What is the very upshot of this? -> Soren Kierkegaard said that It is an essential
feature of human existence that we are striving, we are trying to fulfil goals in our existence (e.g. Striving toward a degree, having a family, a
job). So whatever we are doing on a daily basis, we are striving towards a goal.
- The essential thing is that Life is going forward, we are going forward (e.g. Getting older) and you cannot go back to a fresh start, you make
certain decisions and have to life with it.
- What we are doing in life is aiming towards goals.
- We might we living forward but life is understood backward: “It is quite true what philosophy says, that life must be understood backward.
But then one forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forward. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with
temporal life never being able to be properly understood, precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest to adopt the position
backward.” -> When you think about your life, you are trying to understand why you did certain things -> Why did I do the thing I did, How did
we get here? Why am I here and why am I doing this? -> life must be understood backwards, we look back. Impossible to predict what you
will become, you can wish for all kinds of things, strive towards things but you don’t know whether you will get there. We don’t know whether
We will live to see tomorrow, things happen in life and unfortunately we can’t predict them. To see what will happen in life, life must be lived.
Don’t forget the principle that life must be lived forward, towards the future.
- If you try to define yourself for example you say ‘I am a person that easily gets angry,’ but when it all comes to it, you cannot define yourself
because if you easily get angry, maybe it is a task of you to behave more calmy in situation. Even though today, you want a degree, it may well
be that tomorrow you say that you don’t care anymore -> That is what life is about, you can be very determined about yourself but you can
never really say that you have understood yourself until the day you die and then it is to late -> So, life must be lived forward but at the same
time you are thinking of who you were, live goes on, constantly we are stiving, constantly we are in the making. You never really know what
will come of you.
Life can be understood backwards but we must live forward -> crucial to understand ourself and to understand whether there are things that we
ought to do. What should we do in life? -> You have to try to come to terms with who are we? What are we doing? -> well, we are constantly
, striving. You cannot understand life as long as you live -> You might think that you know yourself but In 10 years when you look back, you will be
surprised what has come of you e.g. You cannot say that you will love forever, you cannot predict how your life is going to go.
Obligation/ethical demand or claim: we are able to experience obligation. Are there things we must do?
- Is there an obligation in life? In the least, we are able to experience obligation. If you think about human life and you compare that for
example to animal life. One of the main differences is that A human being can withhold itself, can say to itself ‘I would very much like to smash
that object to pieces but out of respect to the person who made it,’ -> You are able to withhold yourself, even though it is not always. We are
able to experience obligation.
- We have an idea of what it means that we have or should do something. In obligation, people can decide to give their lives for somebody else.
Animals cannot experience obligation, they follow their nature, they write on their instinct. If we would not experience obligation we would
live in a totally different world -> Isn’t that what is happening all the time? -> Yes, people lower themselves to animals, slaughtering other
humans. If you decide not to treat them in a properly human way, you have lowered yourself to the Animals (We have to excuse animals
because they don’t know any better).
- We can experience obligation because we can reflect on our life and that is what we do all the time. Talking about Ethics is talking about what
ought to be done and what ought to be framed. If you take these features from human life, there is no human life anymore.
These 3 features (normativity/individuality/humanity) are essential to see in what direction we should move when we talk about ethics, when we
speak about whether there is an ethical obligation to do or not do something.
“For existing ethically, it is an advantageous preliminary study to learn that the individual human being stands alone.” -> For existing ethically ->
living like a human being and not like an animal. When we think about ethics, we should first think about what it means that the individual stands
alone? -> Kierkegaard said that However you think about Ethics, you have to terms with the fact that, you and I as a person, as an individual are
standing alone even though we live together, talk to each other and share things with each other -> Eventually, everything will fall on our shoulders
when we have to make ethical decisions. If you do something because you are told to do so. If I tell you “You should not kill” and only therefore
you don’t kill it doesn’t really work. It is not because you are told that you shouldn’t steal or kill, that this has ethical value. It should come out of
your own reflection that you shouldn’t kill and not because someone tells you to.
Individuality comes first, this doesn’t mean you have to be selfish but it means that you as a human being have individual responsibilities. You are
responsible not because the world is looking at you but because you are a human being.
3. The threefold characteristic of the ethical demand
Is there an Ethical Demand/obligation? -> Yes, there is, you can come up with three characteristic, that can help us talk about ethics and this ethical
demand/obligation and you cannot think of one without the other, they are a whole we cannot separate them, discuss them separately. If you
speak about that there is an infinite character than at the same time its also absolute. With ethics, we are trying to understand something that
maybe at the end we cannot really understand. How is that possible -> Because life is understood backward but lived forward.
In the end we will have to conclude that ethics has a disruptive nature, an unsettling nature. Something that confuses us. You can never come up
with a theory that is valid for once and for all.
In the end it is better to be confused than to say now we know for once and for all that this is true.
Singular: This ethical obligation has a “silent character” of the demand, it cannot be observed from the ‘outside’ or ‘generalized’.
- We are individuals and cannot share our self-sense, we cannot be another. Obligation has a singular characteristic.
- If there is an ethical demand, it refers/speaks to you as a singular person, human being. It doesn’t speak about mankind or all Belgians or all
Russians -> It doesn’t speak about people in general, it speaks about us as individuals. If there is such a thing as obligation, it lies on your
shoulders and your shoulders only, you carry the responsibility as an individual and you cannot say ‘he is doing this, so I will do the same’ ->
This is not how ethical obligation works. Ethical obligation speaks to you.
- I Ethics is about individuals -> Ethical demand cannot be generalized: you cannot say “To do good, you have to give a 100 euro away a month
to the poor,” -> this is a generalized obligation. If you would only do something because it is the rule, the obligation, it is no longer ethical.
- It depends on your individual situation what you have to do, everybody is different and lives in different circumstances.
- The fact that ethical obligation has a silent character means that you cannot simply shout it out. It is silent because it means that each person
in his or her situation has to decide what the ethical demand is. It is silent because it is very difficult to share that just like you cannot share
your individuality. You have to use your imagination, insights and understandings about yourself and about life to reflect and to know what to
do. This is not something that you can do with someone else but in the end it is you, your responsibility. You who shall exist ethically, and shall
live responsible.
- Your obligation depends on yourself, on you as an individual, different for each individual. Each person has to decide their obligation for
themselves. Use your understandings of life, to decide what you have to do. You are responsible and ethically responsible (continue)
- We stand alone with our own situation, in our own context with our own background, characteristics, capabilities and experiences.
e.g. If you see someone drowning, it is your ethical obligation to save them but if you cannot swim or to aged to jump into cold water, it might
be better to call someone else -> it depends thus on yourself, what you as an individual are able to do.
- What you can or can’t do depends on yourself/you as an individual person.
- It is not because we are individually responsible, that is means that we can just do whatever we want -> It is not because ethical demand is
singular that you can do whatever you want and desire, you still have an obligation -> otherwise there wouldn’t be an ethical demand This
is the trap of ethical relativism. Ethical relativism has nothing to do with Ethics anymore cause in ethics its claimed that there is obligation,
that there is something that we ought to do.
- If you would do whatever you want, you would be an animal (They don’t reflect, they don’t experience obligation and maybe these also don’t
experience as much joy or boredom like us).
- If you do something it is the law, because otherwise you get punished -> that has no ethical value. This is a legal obligation, Ethics is about the
fact that you experience freedom to do anything e.g. I can give a 100 euros but if I don’t no one will say anything. It is on your shoulders to
decide to decide and reflect what you ought to do. People have a sense of obligation
Absolute: life is “a gift”, it befalls and eludes us, we are “thrown in” and called to life/live
, - To what extent are we responsible? When are we responsible? From what age on are we ethically responsible. From which age on do we feel
an obligation and are we held responsible for what we do?
- Nobody enters life after having been having asked permission. Nobody entered life because he or she wanted to. Whether you are happy with
your life or not. However, the outlook on life is, we are still thrown into life, we had no choice.
- What does this say of ethical obligation if this is always the case? -> If we are thrown into life, it also means that our life is bigger than
ourselves. You cannot claim to dispose of your life because somehow life has been given to you, it’s a gift.
- If you claim that life is a gift, you presume, there is a giver, that something has given your life (We are in the dark, we don’t know whether
someone has given us life), you know that you have a mother but you can hardly say that your parents really wanted you (that you were
wanted). They couldn’t predict that you were the person that they wanted, that you were going to be you. You are who you are and no one
could tell beforehand that you would be you.
- So who made you that you would be you and not somebody else? -> highly improbable that You are the result of an event -> yes it is given to
us biologically by our parents but they didn’t decide that you would be you. Life is given to us and we have to give it back, you cannot live
forever. Your life stops at some point in time.
- If you say, life is a gift that ‘giver” becomes problematic -> life befalls (Throwness, we are not we before we fell) and eludes us (we have to lose
our live in the end, you cannot continue forever, nobody can experience what is feels like to be death).
- If we say that life is a gift, people say there is a god, that god created me -> Maybe so, but no one can say for sure. This is just a belief.
- Ethics cannot start with religious beliefs/religion. Religious perspective that god has given us life is a dogmatic belief -> Ethics has nothing to
do with that-> This dogmatic belief means that There are certain things you have to belief, even though you don’t understand them, that is
what religion is saying. In Ethics you cannot start from a dogmatic belief.
- We can also say that we were called into life by someone.
- “we are always already responsible” -> there is something that throws us, calls us into life and gives us life and we cannot steer that. We are
confronted with the fact that the moment, that we come/are thrown into life, responsibility is walking besides us, is on our shoulder. You
cannot feel Ethical obligation on a Monday and feel nothing on a Tuesday. We are always responsible because Life is bigger than us, than our
personal opinion, desire, reflections -> Absolute characteristic of ethical demand, it is always there.
- You cannot be so free that you claim that you called yourself to life, That you can claim that you will not die, you are bound to this life.
- When we exist, we start living. From the beginning. In the mid of life we are already responsible.
Infinite: “life is lived forward but understood backwards”, we are “striving infinitely and continually in the process of becoming”, no “realizable
goal”
- We are striving to reach goals (getting a degree, house, family). This striving characteristic touches upon something infinite because it is
something that we always do, we always strive, it never stops. Setting goals is infinite, when we reach a certain goal, we are always going to
set another one, that is what human beings do. First you want your degree, then you want a job, a family, …
This is the reason why we cannot understand life as we are always in the making, that’s why life is understood backwards and lived forward.
Life cannot never be understood, we are always in the making, it changes while we think of it. While we are speaking, we are getting older.
- If we set ourselves ethical goals (how can I be good): They are also never reached, they an infinite characteristic (you cannot say today I have
given a 100 euros so for the rest of the week, I am okay) -> You could say that but that is not how ethical demand functions, ethical demand is
always there, always on your shoulder and has an infinite characteristic, there is no realizable goal. The task is always there during the whole
of life, You can’t simply perform it and be done. If there is no realizable goal, we can get overwhelmed/crushed by the demand, If it is never
enough. Where will it end? -> You don’t really know where it stops. Just like in the absolute characteristic, you don’t know where your life is
coming from and just like in the singular characteristic, you don’t know who the other is. There are things that we don’t know.
- If you have done something, you can be sure that what you did was right or good enough. You can think that you know, but you can never
really know whether you have acted in the right way. Ethics is not some theory that teaches you how you can do good.
- You don’t know what we goal of Ethics like you don’t really know where life is coming from and where it is going and like you don’t really
know how it is to be someone else.
- “A person can never be sure that he or she acted in the right manner. Our uncertainty is our guilt.” -> The fact that we don’t know is our guilt.
Guilt is an ethical concept, there is something on your shoulder, something that you need to do but cannot do it. The fact that we cannot be
certain comes with existential guilt (the feeling that we haven’t done enough and that you cannot do enough).
- You cannot ‘I couldn’t care less’, because you didn’t choose your life, you didn’t ask for it, you didn’t give permission. People who say that they
don’t care, deny those 3 characteristics. Then you deny the existential characteristic of life.
- Being a human being, is being faced with existential guilt -> You never say with certainty that you have lived a good life.
When dealing with Ethics, you are dealing with some kind of disruptive nature of ethics -> It is unsettling us because it somehow crashes our
knowledge, the certainty with which we are facing life. There is no overarching theory that will teach us what is good. That gives us knowledge
about what to do and that is unsettling. It is unsettling because we live in Modern Science -> On of the features of modern science is that we
know something, that they claim to know the truth about things (Physics). It says that we can known with certainty or will known eventually
(math, chemistry). There are always things that we will not known and this can be very unsettling.
4. Introduction 2: What is (applied) ethics?
Now we are going to look at the etymological roots of Ethics and show how people have been looking at what ethics is.
There are a number of nouns/concepts/adjectives that are circulating whenever people discuss ethical themes or ethical questions. We of course
than talk about the word Ethics but often used are also the words Morals and Morality -> Do they mean the same? -> Distinction may also be a
problem. People overlook the fact that when we think about the rules of what ethics is, somehow there is a distinction involved that points at the
very core of what ethics is doing. When we use morals and morality in our daily language, we tend to forget something.
How we use language in our daily encounters is what matters when you discuss ethics.
“Karma” -> a word that has been very popular, a lot of people use it without realizing where it comes from and what it really means. People who
believe in Karma, believe that what you are in this life has to do with who you were in your precious life. It has to do with reincarnation.
Morals/Morality stems from a use of language that in the ancient times was a distinction but somehow now that seems to be forgotten. If you
confuse both terms you are implying that Morals and Morality are something that is just out there and it is not just out there. It’s always related
something singular (has to do with you as a person).
, If you think about the etymological roots of Ethics, you are confronted with Ancient Greek. This is also often to case of Philosophy (Ethics is part of
philosophy) -> Words used in ethics often ‘speak’ Greek. Everything related to Ethics is related to the Western culture.
Ethics and morals and morality are referring back to the word ethos -> very common word in Greek.
Twofold meaning of ‘ethos’
- ‘éthos’ (‘εθοζ’) -> Means morals in Latin. Many Latin writers often referred to éthos -> Homer used éthos in a specific way. He uses it as a
place where animals/ horses are gathering together in order to perform some activity. In Greek it is a place where animals come together, a
shelter place for animals. Living beings who come together and form a group and do that in order to wash themselves, to feed, to multiply.
Some habits and customs arise. There is a ranking here, some are the leaders, some are obedient (e.g. Chickens, there is a certain picking
order) -> This is the case for animals but also for human beings.
Cicero -> O tempora, o mores -> What times what customs = Not only with animals but also with humans at the place when they get together,
there are some customs. Why do we get customs when we get together -> have to do with survival, we have to structure our being together
in order to survive. Together we create culture.
The word éthos seem to imply the rules/ habits of conduct belonging to a certain group. Communal values that develop. How to you describe an
éthos of a group in society? -> You must portray the characteristics that are the most valued in our society. If you would describe the contemporary
ethos, the ones in which we live, you will have to come up with for example being assertive, being flexible, being many-sided, being
communicative, speaking many languages. Think about the characteristics and in that way you will have defined the ethos in which we are living.
vs. ‘èthos’ (‘ηθοζ’) -> touches upon what éthos is but says something more. Whenever the Greek are using it, they refers to the fundament or
characteristics of human action. Its not about what everybody is doing, is about what an individual is doing after having reflected on their actions.
It is based on conviction/persuasion. It reflects morality.
Aristotle: Virtues are always referring to the character of human action. It should be reflected, you should be aware of what you are doing and
somehow you have to make sure that the fundament of what you are doing is reflected.
The word ethos is undeniable. You always have this threefold distinction. Important to know that we speak on the one hand of morals and on the
other hand of morality and then we also speak about ethics -> What is then the difference between morals/morality and ethics?
Morals: totality of rules of conduct, supra-personal, communal (e.g. sociology, cultural anthropology)
- Morals is reflecting éthos. Rules of conduct in society, reflects standards/norms in society. When you realize what standards/norms are in
society, it doesn’t matter because they are always there. But when you don’t mirror in your behavior these norms, it says something about
your belongs in that culture of not. Example: Kissing each other on the cheek -> It can be very embarrassing if you don’t know how many
kisses to have to give on the cheek cause this differs from culture to culture -> In France it is three but in Scandinavia they don’t kiss, they hug
When you show that you know what you should do -> you show that you belong in that particular culture. You can say that you belong to
that culture because you were socialized in its habits.
- Morals seem to imply that there are habits, that there are rules of conduct. That they are suprapersonal (you don’t have to invent them). You
don’t have to reflect on them, they are just there and the importance of community means that you behave like the others, that you know
what to do.
- Morals don’t need to be ethical or have an ethical content, they can have an esthetic value. You can have morals that are highly immoral. If
you think about certain habits in certain cultures for example: for certain culture when you steal something, the punishment is to cut of your
hand -> that Is what people do and nobody really questions it or another example: football -> it belongs to the morals that if you are
homosexual as a football player, you do not out that (part of the morals and customs in football) -> Morals can have an immoral content.
- Where are Morals being studied/being discussed -> In all kind of sciences -> You describe those customs.
Morality: individual, deliberate action (conscience)
- Morality refers to èthos -> more reflected. Has to do with the characteristic/fundamental of human action. It seems, to be referring to any
conscious or deliberate actions. People even if they are socialized in some kind of ethos, they are aware of what is going on and they do know
what they are doing. Example: refusing to eat meat. We live in a society of meat-industry but morality is a kind of individual protest where you
say that you won’t eat meat. Morality thus refers to any individual deliberate actions
- Deliberate action = knowing what you are doing. Èthos is reflected in our character.
- Important word: conscience (if people refer to their conscience, they are somehow in a conversation with themselves about something ->
example: People can say, ‘I don’t eat meat because my conscience forbids this”). What does conscience mean -> somehow they seem to know
something. It is something that is inside you but also has a reference to something outside. It’s not you but its forbidding you to do
something. Conscience is like an inside voice that is telling you what to do.
Referring to conscience as a means for something good (Saying you have good reasons to do something) is problematic because there is no
real external point of view, its individually performing an action because it is referring to itself for the ground of its action.
On the level of morality, we are still not at the end of all we have to say about Ethics.
Latin: Scire
English: To know
Ethics: systematic and critical reflection on morals and morality
- Something that comes to the front when we have to reflect on ethical/moral practices. Ethics in a systematic and critical way reflects on
morals & morality.
- We refer to systematicity -> We are trying to say something sound, something that makes sense about morals and morality. Tries to say
something about Morals/morality in a more scientific way. Typical for science is that there should be a system -> Problematic because they
whole idea of systematicity is square to what ethics, what the 3 fold characteristics is about. Systematicity implies that you can lose something
more than just the individual level -> you can transcend what is going on in the individual level and raise it to a more fundamental sphere
where you can come up with a more universal idea of what is good and what is bad.
- Most ethics seem to suggest that you can come up with ethical theory in a systematic and critical way -> Ethics is always about ethical theory -
> a reflection raised to a second power, mainly to the level of systematicity.
- Ethics comes around when there is a problem on the level on morality -> People have their own conscience, We are persuading on some
things. Persuaded on the things that are good and bad. What happens if there is a clash between individual, when individuals can no longer
live together because they have a completely different outlook on what ought to be done -> Then ethics coms to the form.
- What in the level of society, things start to change? What if morals are no longer self-evident? -> Then we are in need of some kind of
theory/Ethical reflection where we can transcend the individual level of disagreement -> Points at the problematic nature of Ethics -> When
ethics comes to the front, there is already a problem.
