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College Notes Ethics (E_EBE2_ETHI) VU
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summary of lectures of the course Ethics, which is given at all economic studies at the Vrije universiteit (second year period 3).
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EthicsLecture summary
Lecture 1
Business science focuses on organizations:
(Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions).
- Organizations as agents.
If organizations are agents, their behavior 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 behavior of the individual agents within the organization
and outside the organization from an ethical perspective?
Business science focuses on markets:
(Again, both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions).
- 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?
Business science focuses on markets in society:
(Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions).
- The impact of markets on society.
To which extent current societal values are affected (or should be affected) by “what is good
for the markets”?
- The impact of society on 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:
Recognizing alternatives.
Recognizing stakeholders.
Recognizing consequences.
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 values no ethical problem.
What ethical behavior is NOT:
- Not the same as acting according to one’s feelings/emotions.
- Not the same as acting according to religious beliefs.
- Not the same as abiding by the law.
- Not the same as following social conventions / culturally accepted norms.
- Not the same as 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.
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 most good and the least harm.
- Rawls: Do what is necessary to “share one another’s fate”.
These general ethical principles might clash with each other when we try to apply them to concrete
situations…
Lecture 2
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos meaning character, custom or habit.
Today ethics can mean:
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.
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)
- Greek philosopher.
- Student of Plato’s academy in Athens.
- Tutor of Alexander the Great.
- Founder of lyceum in Athens.
- The Corpus Aristotelicum is what we are left.
Logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics & politics, rhetoric’s and poetics.
Ethics for Aristotle
Ethics is not a theoretical discipline:
We are not asking 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?
- 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 preserver. 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 (eu = good, daimon = spirit): often translated as happiness, flourishing, well-being.
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”.
According to Aristotle the highest good:
- Is self-sufficient.
- Is desirable for itself.
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