Varieties of business ethics
Business ethics: a study of professional practcess he study of the content, development,
management and efectveness of the codes of conduct designed to guide the actons of people
engaged in business actvitess here are diferent consideratons of business ethics:
Academic perspectiie: ethics in the atendees of academic conferences in business ethics
and the types of artcles that are published in business ethics journalss
o Social scientists: approach the study of business ethics descriptvelyy
o Normatiie theorists: about the results in diferent disciplines (philosophy,
economics, psychology, law), or at least being aware of gaps in one’s own knowledge
Corporate moral agency
One way of think about business ethics is in terms of the moral obligatons of agents engaged in
business actvitys But the queston is ‘Who is a moral agent?’ and ‘Are frms moral agents and morally
responsible considered as frms, not considered as aggregates of individual members of frms’s
Some say that frms are morally responsible since they have internal decision-making structures
through which they cause events to happens Others say they that frms are not morally responsible
since they lack important human capacitess
The ends and means of corporate goiernance
here are two main view about the proper ends of corporate governance:
Shareholder primacy: frms should be managed in the best interests of shareholders, this
requires maximizing their wealths his is the dominant view about the ends of corporate
governancey
Stakeholder theory: instead of managing the frm in the best interests of shareholders only,
managers should seek to ‘balance’ the interests of all stakeholderss But the problem of this
theory is: where do we draw the line on who stakeholders are?
Answers to questons about the means of corporate governance ofen mirror answers to questons
about the end of corporate governances So, supporters of the Shareholder primacy say that
shareholders’ ownership of the frm gives them a right to control the frms Others call for various
forms of worker partcipaton in managerial decision-making, including: the ability by workers to
reject arbitrary directves by managers, protectng workers’ interests, autonomy over one’s actons
or worker partcipaton in managerial decision-makings
Popular frameworks for business ethics
Business ethicists seek to understand the ethical contours of and principles of right acton for
business actvitys One way of advancing this is by choosing a normatve framework and teasing out its
implicatons for a range of issues in businesss here are four diferent frameworks:
Virtue ethics: business is a practce, and thus has certain goods internal to it, the atainment
of which requires the cultvaton of business virtuesy
Kantian moral theory: in compettve market, people may be tempted to deceive, cheat or
manipulate others to gain an edges Kantan moral theory singles these actons out as
violatons of human dignitys Kant claims that humanity should be treated always as an endy
Justice as fairness: how ethics comprehends the law and regulatons that structure markets
and organizatonss It is compatble with signifcant inequalites of power and authority within
businesses, it requires people to have an opportunity to perform meaningful work and it
requires alternatve forms of corporate governance and ownershipy
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