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Desjardins3e PPT Ch2
Desjardins3e PPT Ch2
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Ethical Relativism and Reasoning Is there any way to defend the claim that harassment is unethical?
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Psychological Egoism
Human beings can not act but out of self-interest: a central tenet of psychological egoism.
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Psychological Egoism
Psychological egoism is a descriptive, factual claim about how people do act and how they are motivated. Ethical egoism is a normative theory that prescribes how people should act
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Psychological Egoism
Two forms of ethical egoism:
People should pursue their self-interest, properly understood. The role of ethics, then, is to help people understand their best interests. We can still arrange social institutions in a way that would channel individual egoism to the social good, i.e. social contracts.
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Psychological Egoism
All ethical theories, including both forms of ethical egoism, argue that our ethical responsibilities will sometimes require us to act in ways that constrain our own behavior in the interest of others.
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Psychological Egoism
If ethical egoism is to pose a threat to Business ethics, then ethical egoism has to become more than merely a tendency of humans. Defenders of ethical egoism must claim that humans always and only act out of self-interest. What about parenting and friendship?
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Psychological Egoism
Egoists respond that as parents and friends we are doing what we want to do so we are still acting selfishly. As parents and as friends to others, we derive satisfaction out of these acts and this suggests that selfishness underlies even the most beneficent acts.
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Psychological Egoism
These responses fail because
People do things they dont necessarily want to do. The responses confuse the intention or purpose for acting with the feelings or reactions that follow from the act itself.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Roots of utilitarian thinking can be found in Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), David Hume (1711-1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790). Classic formulations of Utilitarianism are found in the writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).
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Utilitarian Ethics
The theory tells us that we can determine the ethical significance of any action by looking to the consequences of that act. Maximizing the overall good or The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number of People Utilitarianism provided strong support for democratic institutions and policies.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Government and social institutions exist for the well-being of all people, not to further the interest of the monarch or the wealthy elite. The economy exists to provide the highest standard of living for the greatest number of people, not to create wealth for a privileged few.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Utilitarianism looks at the consequences of actions. Utilitarianism is pragmatic: no one is ever right or wrong in every situation. It all depends on the consequences. Utilitarian acknowledge two kinds of value: instrumental value and intrinsic value. If we judge our acts in terms of their consequences, then we must have some independent standard for deciding between good and bad consequencesThere must be some intrinsic value by which we can judge the consequences 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. of our acts. McGraw-Hill
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Utilitarian Ethics
Jeremy Bentham argued that only pleasure, or at least the absence of pain was intrinsically valuable. Happiness must be understood in terms of pleasure and the absence of pain. Unhappiness must be understood to be the presence of pain and the absence of pleasure. Pleasure and pain are the two fundamental motivational factors of human nature.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Bentham reasoned: Only pleasure and the absence of pain is valued for its own sake. Only pleasure and the absence of pain are good; more pleasure (or less pain) is better and maximum pleasure (or minimum pain) is best. Therefore, maximizing pleasure is the fundamental, objective, and indisputable ethical principle.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Utilitarianism differs from egoism: Utilitarian acts are judged by their consequences for the general and overall good. The good includes the well-being of each individual affected by the action. Egoism focuses only on individual selfinterests.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Mill defended a different understanding of happiness: There is a qualitative dimension to happiness: Happiness is not hedonism. Humans are capable of enjoying a variety of experiences that produce happiness social and intellectual pleasures in addition to physical.
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Utilitarian Ethics
To decide which pleasures and what type of happiness is better we should consult with someone with the experience of both. Thus Mill acknowledges that not all opinions are equal. Some people are more competent to decide what is good than others.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Mills utilitarianism does not support an uncritical majority rule in which every opinion is treated equally. The best way to develop competent judges is through experience and education. Once people are educated and experienced, then majority-rule democracy is the best way to make decisions.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Implications for Business and Economics: Economic transactions occur when people seek their own happiness. If people make mistakes and buy products that fail to bring them satisfaction, they learn from those mistakes and no longer buy the product. Market forces eventually eliminate unsatisfactory products.
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Utilitarian Ethics
Free market economics is a form of preference utilitarianism where the utilitarian goal is the maximum satisfaction of preferences. Efficiency structures our economy. We allow individuals the freedom to bargain for themselves. Agreements occur only when both parties believe a transaction will improve their own position. Competition works to improve the overall good.
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Challenges to Utilitarianism
Problems from within
Finding ways to measure happiness Differing versions of the good and implications for human freedom
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Deontological Ethics
Sometimes the correct path is determined not by consequences but by certain duties. Duties = Obligations, Commitments, and Responsibilities Deontology denies the utilitarian belief that the ends do justify the means. There are just some things we should do, or should not do, regardless of the consequences.
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Deontological Ethics
Deontological Ethics focuses on the dignity of individuals. Individuals have rights that should not be sacrificed simply to produce a net increase in the collective good. Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative: Our primary duty is to act only in those ways in which the maxim of our acts could be made a universal law. Maxim = Intention: What am I doing?
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Deontological Ethics
Kant: Ethics requires us to treat all people as ends, not as means to ends. Humans are subjects that have their own purposes and ends, and should not be treated merely as the means to the ends of others. Our ultimate ethical duty is to treat people with respect.
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Deontological Ethics
If our duty is to treat every person with respect, then we can argue that each person has a right to be treated in a respectful fashion. My rights establish your duties and my duties correspond to the rights of others. Duties establish the ethical limits of our behavior. Duties are what we owe to other people. Others have a claim upon our behavior.
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Deontological Ethics
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Deontological Ethics
Rights are protecting interests. Wants and interests are different from each other. Wants are desires. Interests work for a persons benefit and are objectively connected to what is good for that person. People dont always want what is good for them.
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Deontological Ethics
What rights do we have? What human characteristic justifies the assumption that humans possess a special dignity? Why would it be wrong to treat people as mere means or objects, rather than as ends or subjects?
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Deontological Ethics
Humans make free choices. Humans have autonomy. Humans originate action for their own ends. To treat someone as a means to an end is to negate their autonomy their ability to make free choices.
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Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is the tradition within philosophical ethics that seeks a full and detailed description of those character traits, or virtues, that would constitute a good and full human life. Rather than describing people as good or bad, Virtue ethics encourages a fuller description.
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Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is also prescriptive in offering advice in how we should live. Virtue ethics asks us to examine how character traits are formed and conditioned. Look at the actual business practices we find and ask what type of people are being created by those practices.
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Virtue Ethics
Many individual moral dilemmas that arise in business can best be understood as arising from a tension between the type of person we seek to be and type of person business expects us to be.
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Conclusion
These theories are attempts to extract and articulate the basic principles already present in common ways of thinking. Utilitarianism asks us to consider not only the consequences that our acts might have for ourselves, but also the consequences of our acts for all parties affected by them.
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Conclusion
Deontological approaches insist that some things should be done and some things should not be done regardless of the consequences. Respecting individual rights and fulfilling out ethical obligations can set limits on decisions aimed at producing good consequences.
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Conclusion
Virtue ethics encourages us to seek answers to very profound questions:
Who am I? What type of person am I to be? Our character is manifest in our habits, dispositions, and personality.
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