Jorge Polanco

Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

RIT Saunders College of Business
MBA Program
09/01/2016
Homework 4
Intro to Ethics - The language of ethics for managers
What is moral imagination and why is it important?
A moral person is someone concerned with the principles of right and wrong, someone
with principles.
Imagination is the faculty of forming images or concepts of what is not actually real at
the time. The imagination gives each of us the ability to capture the world in a different
way, this can helps us understand the world y our purpose here.
After doing some reading and investigation, I can define Moral Imagination as the
implication that men and women are moral beings and that the power of the imagination
enables them to perceive a rank of worth and certain permanent truths.1
In my words Moral Imagination is the ability to build a mental map with the
consequences of what would happen if you dont do the right thing.
It can also be defined as a uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as
moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness.2
Moral imagination is important because it helps people deal with ethical issues, it helps
us act more ethically in society and it could also help managers and leaders face with
ethical dilemmas in the workplace.
How do individuals develop moral imagination?
For developing moral imagination we need to have a clear mind about whats correct and
what isnt. Also we need to be clear that anything that we do has a consequence and as
part of life at some point we will have to deal with ethical dilemmas and sometimes what
is right isnt the best.
We need to keep Moral Myopia away; it is the inability to see clearly ethical issues when
we face them, that way we could be able to take use our moral imagination and define
what would happen depending what we choose, therefore being able to make the right
decision.
1 http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-moral-imagination/
2 https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/07/defining-moral-imagination