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Ethics ethics summary lectures + clips
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Self-made resume of all the lectures and the video clips. exam grade: 8.5
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WEEK 1Business science focuses on organizations
● Organizations as agents – as they make decisions in the market or global economy, and their
decisions have consequences for other parties
● Organizations as events – structured social environment where people work and affect each other
through their interactions
Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
● If organizations are agents, their behavior can be evaluated on ethical grounds: which of their
actions and decisions are ethically justifiable
● If organizations are environments (i.e. structured groups of agents), then how does the
organizational structure affect the behavior or the individual agents within the organization and
outside the organization from an ethical perspective?
Business science focuses on markets
● Markets as environments in which organizations operate
● Markets as coordination systems alternative to organizations
Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
● 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?
● If markets are alternative to organizations, then in which ways this difference affects the form of
evaluations (including ethical evaluations) practices within and outside organizations?
Business science focuses on markets in society
● The impact of markets on society
● The impact of society on markets
Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
● 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? – how much should we as a
society intervene and affect the organization, structure and operation of markets?
,Ethical decision-making
● The process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a way that is consistent with ethical
principles. This entails:
○ Recognizing alternatives – what kind of options do you have?
○ Recognizing stakeholders – who will be affected by our actions
○ Recognizing consequences – how will stakeholders be affected by our actions
● Decision-making processes are multi-dimensional
● Hence, decisions involve clashes (conflicts) 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
○ Is it restricting someone’s freedom, is it infringing someone’s right, how can we contrast this
loss and gain?
○ No clash of legitimate values, no ethical problems!
■ Important to see what the important ethical values are
What ethical behavior is NOT
● Not the same as acting according to one’s feelings/emotions/gut
● Not the same as acting according to religious beliefs
○ Religious beliefs do play a part in shaping of ethics, and ethics play a part in shaping
religious beliefs, but they are not the same
● Not the same as abiding by (following) the law – many systems of law around the world, just
following the law is not (un)ethically per se.
● Not the same as following social conventions/culturally accepted norms
● Not the same as acting on the basis of scientific knowledge
○ To identify alternatives, stakeholders and consequences we need accurate knowledge and
to analyze the situation, but we cannot reduce ethics to this
Thus, although feelings, beliefs, legal and social norms, and true facts and evidence might provide valuable
input to consider, they are often not enough, and ethics cannot be reduced to any of these.
What is hard about ethical decision-making?
Is there an unquestionable basis on which we can ground our ethical principles? 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 best and the least harm – about consequences
● Rawls: do what is necessary to “share one another’s fate” – about position in society, fairness
● Communitarianism: obligations to our communities – we have obligations to our communities
These general ethical principles might clash with each other when we try to apply them to concrete
situations.
,WEEK 2
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
● Greek philosopher, a scientist and a polymath
● Student of Plato’s Academy in Athens
● Tutor of Alexander the Great
● Founder of the Lyceum in Athens
● The Corpus Aristotelicum is what we are left
○ Logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics & politics, rhetorics & poetics
“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”.
“I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of
the law.”
Ethics for Aristotle
● 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 the highest goal in life?
○ What is the most important thing a person is trying to have in life?
● And these questions are always connected with politics.
“Since political science employs the other sciences, and also lays down laws about what we should do and
refrain from, its end will include the ends of the others, and will therefore be the human good. For even if
the good is the same for an individual as for a city, that of the city is obviously a greater and more complete
thing to obtain and preserve. For while the good of an individual is a desirable thing, what is good for a
people or for cities is a nobler and more godlike thing. Our enquiry, then, is a kind of political science,since
these are the ends it is aiming at.”
The highest good
● Eudaimonia is the highest good (eu = good, daimōn = spirit): Often translated as happiness,
flourishing, well- being, welfare.
● Where does eudaimonia consist of? 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.”
→ Disagreement: different people give different answers as to what it really means.
● What could eudaimonia consist of:
○ Pleasure? No, because there are many other goods that have nothing to do with pleasure
that would enhance life
○ Wealth? No, because wealth is something we want, not for itself, but to get some other
thing – wealth is a tool to obtain other things
, ○ Honor? No, as it depends on who bestows it and not only on who receives it. Also, the
highest good should come from within and not be something that can be taken away
○ Having virtue? No, it is not enough because you can have virtues but maybe my life is very
inactive or misery.
The highest good and telos
● According to Aristotle, the highest good:
○ is self-sufficient: something that is enough for a good life (also why he rejects pleasure)
○ is desirable for itself (unlike wealth)
○ is not desirable for the sake of some other good (like honor)
○ all other goods are desirable for its sake (can not make it better by adding more goods)
● Hence, the highest good is the ultimate purpose, goal of the good life, end. → Telos
Telos: goal, end, purpose, function – everything exists to be able to provide something
Teleological: relative to the purpose
➔ Goodness resides in the fulfillment of one’s telos.
What is the highest good? → eudaimonia. But what is eudaimonia? The highest good is the ultimate
purpose. Telos is the goal, purpose, function. So you need to know what the telos is to know what your
ultimate purpose is and thus the highest good. And how good you are in the telos how more you fulfill the
telos. So the highest good is connected with the telos, the purpose of humans.
Logos as human telos
● Aristotle's key idea in defining the telos of humans is the following: Understanding the telos of
humans means identifying what is particular to being human. What makes us, us. Aristotle says:
“Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude,
therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be
common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element
that has a rational principle.”
→ logos is the actual word used for rational principle
Logos: Speech, structured thought, reason, ratio (speech and reason are connected, one can not exist
without the other)
“[...] and man alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and
pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well [...] but speech is designed to indicate the
advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of
man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and
wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a
city-state.”
● Here the word used for speech is again logos
● In this passage Aristotle explains why man is a political animal by nature, exactly the same
argument.
● Telos of humans: to live a life of activity following reason.
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