Study Notes

BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THE CONDUCT OF BUSINESS

Lesson 3 (part III)

1. Moral Rights
 The Rights Approach to decision-making in business maintains that each and every
stakeholder (person) has basic human rights that should be seriously taken into
consideration when making decisions, rules, and policies.
 What is a right? Rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to
be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not)
be in certain states.
 Rights Classification: legal rights and moral rights.
2. Legal Rights
 Are rights limited to the particular jurisdiction within which the legal system is in
force.
3. Moral Rights
 Inherent because unlike legal rights, they do not require the person to exert any effort
to possess qualifications, to present requirements, and to be identified with a
particular group.
 Acquired by virtue of simply and plainly being human.
 Independent from society’s system of written laws.
 Universal because a human right is owned by each person wherever he or she goes. It
is not limited by territorial boundaries and by system of laws.
4. Some moral rights included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR)
 The right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
 The right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of
work, and to protection against unemployment.
 The right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for the worker and his family
an existence worthy of human dignity.
 The right to form and join trade unions.
 The right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and
periodic holidays with pay.
5. Human Rights
 Assure that each person’s capacity to think, to decide, to choose, and to act freely is
respected and promoted.
6. Ethics of Care
 An approach to ethical dilemmas that is significantly different from the various
perspectives namely: utilitarianism, deontology, and rights theories.
 Started as reaction to the male-centered theories of moral reasoning.
 Skeptical of abstract and universal principles especially rational procedural
mechanisms like the principle of utility and the Kantian categorical imperative that
presume to be interchangeable, and moral problems to be derivable like deductive
math problems.

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  Main premise: “we have an obligation to exercise special care toward those particular
persons with whom we have valuable close relationships, particularly relations of
dependency.”
 Claims that partiality is an important consideration in making ethical decisions.
 Criticisms:
a) Its main weakness lies in its tendency to highlight relationships and favor close
associates which may lead to some questionable practices such as nepotism,
favoritism, and conflict of interest.
b) Caring values such as compassion, empathy, and friendship are idealistic and
naïve if applied in business relations…
7. Carol Gilligan
 Feminist psychologist
 A student of Lawrence Kohlberg
 Argues that men and women have different orientations and approaches to moral
reasoning and decision-making.
 She says that while men are driven by justice and entitlement to rights, women are
oriented toward basic human feelings such as sympathy, compassion, fidelity, close
relationship, and so forth.
8. Virtue Ethics
 Concerned with assessing the moral integrity and character of the person.
 Focuses not on the act but on the character of the agent.
 Avoids the danger of being too centered on rules of conduct such as those formulated
through written codes of ethics.
 A reaction against the dominance of utilitarianism and Kantian deontology…
 Rooted in the moral philosophy of the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the medieval
philosopher Thomas Aquinas.
9. Virtue
 From the Latin word virtus, which means strength or power.
 Virtus is the Latin translation of the Greek word arête which literally means
“excellence of any kind” or “moral virtue.”
 Arete refers to the characteristic of anything (living things or nonliving things alike)
when it is true to its purpose.
10. Ricardo Crespo
 “Broadly speaking, virtue is the excellence or perfection of any being.”
11. Moral Virtue (Aristotle)
 Concerned with those characteristics that contribute to the well-being of a person as a
person.
 helps a person to achieve his or her perfection—understood not as the absence of
flaws, but perfection in terms of achieving one’s full potential as a human being.
 the truly happy person is the virtuous person, one who is true to his or her nature as a
human being.
12.Basic Virtues (from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)
 Courage
 Generosity
 Wisdom

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  Justice
 Temperance or self-control
 Note: Virtues are valuable regardless of your specific role in life.
13.Virtue (for Aristotle)
 Is the mean between the two extremes of excess and deficiency.
 It is a habit.
 Attained through constant practice.
14.The Doctrine of the Mean (Aristotle’s)
 Cannot be narrowly understood as moderation.
 It is the result of a thoughtful analysis of the circumstances or the factors that
surround a particular situation.
 Virtue of phronesis refers to the kind of practical wisdom that helps us to know what
the right thing to do is given particular circumstances with various factors to
consider.
15.Some of Robert Solomon’s 45 Virtues that are Relevant to Business
 Autonomy (having a personal identity and integrity)
 Caring (worrying about other’s well-being when one is in a position of control)
 Courage (doing the right thing despite the cost)
 Entrepreneurship (going where no one has gone before and having new ideas and
products)
 Honesty (telling the truth and not lying)
 Justice (giving others their due and treating others fairly)
 Loyalty ( working for the well-being of an organization and one’s status in it )
 Passion (engaging the world with enthusiasm and being infectious and inspiring)
16.The Practice of Virtue
 Is also significant because pure knowledge of the virtues does not make one virtuous.
 One becomes honest, just and courageous, for example, by doing acts of honesty,
justice and courage.
 Does not undermine the importance of rules and principles.

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