1.

The Nature of Morality Chapter 1

2. 2. EHTICS  Ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos” meaning character or customs  According
to “The American ethos” or “The Business ethos” we use the word ethos to refer to the distinguish
disposition, character, altitude of specific people, culture or group  According to Solomon, the
etymology of ethics suggests its basic concerns  Individual character, including what it means to be
“a good person”  The social rules that governs and limit our conduct  Difference between Ethics
and Morality  Morality refers to human conduct and values while ethics refers to study of those areas
3. 3. EHTICS  Business and Organizational Ethics: Business ethics is the study of what constitutes
right and wrong, or good and bad, human conduct in business context. See examples in book
Business: Any organization whose objective is to provide goods and services for profit Business
Persons: They are those who participate in planning, organizing or directing the work of business
Organization: It is a group of people working together to achieve a common purpose  Personal and
Business Ethics: The intimacy between ethics in general and ethics as applied to business contexts
implies that one’s personal ethics cannot be neatly divorced from one’s organizational ethics
4. 4. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS  What falls outside the sphere of Morality is Non-
Morality Standards  Moral standards are different because they concern behavior that is of serious
consequence to human welfare, that can profoundly injure or benefit peoples  The conventional
moral norms against lying, stealing and murdering deals with actions that can hurt people. And the
moral principle that human beings should be treated with dignity and respect uplifts the human
personality.  Moral Standards  Moral standards are different because they concern behavior that is
of serious consequences to human welfare, that can be profoundly injure or benefit peoples  Moral
standards take priority over other standards, including self interest  Their soundness depends on the
adequacy of the reasons that support or justify them
5. 5. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS  Morality and Etiquettes  Morality and Law 
Professional Codes  Where do Moral Standards come from ?
6. 6. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Morality and Etiquettes:  Etiquettes refers to any
special code of behavior or courtesy e.g. It is usually considered bad etiquettes to chew with one’s
mouth open  If we violate the rules of etiquettes that we have read in the books then we rightly
considered as ill- mannered, impolite or even un-civilized but not necessary immoral  Rules of
etiquettes are generally non moral in nature: “Push your chair back into place upon leaving a dinner
table.“ But violation of etiquette can have moral implications . The male boss who refers to female
subordinates as “honey” or “doll” shows bad manners
7. 7. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Morality and Law:  Before understanding law we
should have know that there are four kinds of law: statutes, regulations, common law and
constitutional law  STATUTES: The law which is enacted by legislative bodies e.g. The law that
prohibit theft is a statutes. Statutes make up a large part of the law and are what many of us mean
when we speak of laws  REGULATIONS: Limited in their knowledge legislatures often set up
boards or agencies whose functions include issuing detailed regulations of certain kind of conduct –
Administrative Regulations  COMMON LAW: It refers to law applied in the English speaking world
when there were few statutes. Courts frequently wrote opinions explaining the bases of their decision
in specific cases, including the legal principles they deemed appropriate. Each of these opinion
became a precedent for later decisions in similar cases  CONSITITUTIONAL LAW: It refers to
court rulings on the constitutionality of any law.
8. 8. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Peoples sometimes confused legality and morality, but
they are different things. On one hand, breaking law is not always or necessarily immoral. On the
other hand, the legality of an action does not guarantee that it is morally right.  An action can be
illegal but morally right e.g. Helping a Jewish family to hide from the Nazis was against German Law
1939, but it would have been a morally admirable thing to have done  An action that is legal can be
morally wrong e.g. It may have been perfectly legal for the chairman of a profitable company to layoff
125 workers and use three- quarters of the money saved to boost his pay and that of the company’s
other top manager, but morality of his doing is so open to debate
9. 9. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Professional Codes:  Somewhere between etiquettes
and law lies professional codes of ethics. These are the rules that are supposed to govern the conduct
of members of a given profession. Generally speaking, the members of a profession are understood to
have agreed to abide by those rules as a condition of their engaging in that profession.
10. 10. MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Where do Moral Standards come from ?  Morals
come from issues taught and passed down from person to person. However the original is based on the
religious beliefs of the person sharing the moral. In short all morals come from Religion. Without
religion, all things are possible and no morals are required.
11. 11. RELIGION & MORALITY Morality Need not Rest on Religion  Many people believe that
morality must be based on religion, either in the sense that without religion people would have no
incentive to be moral or in the sense that only religion can provide moral guidance. Others contend
that morality is based on the commands of God. None of these claims is very plausible.
12. 12. ETHICAL RELATIVISM  Ethical Relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to
the norms of one's culture. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of
the society in which it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be
morally wrong in another  Relativism and the “Game” of Business Albert Carr in a essay “Is
Business Bluffing Ethical” argues that a business, as practiced by individuals as well as corporations,
has the impersonal character of a game – a game that demands both special strategy and an
understanding of its special ethical standards. Business has its own norms and rules that differs from
those of the rest of society. Thus according to Carr, a number of things that we normally think of as
wrong are really permissible in a business context e.g. conscious misstatement and concealment of
pertinent facts in negotiations, lying about one’s age on a resume, deceptive packaging, automobile
companies’ neglect of car safety and utility companies’ manipulation of regulators and over changing
of electricity users.
13. 13. HAVING MORAL PRINCIPLES  Conscience:  The inner sense of what is right or wrong in
one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action:  the complex of ethical and moral
principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual  The Limit of Conscience
 Moral Principles and Self- Interest
14. 14. ASSIGNMENT NO. 1
15. 15. MORALITY & PERSONAL VALUES
16. 16. INDIVIDUAL INTEGRITY & RESPONSIBILTY  The Individual Inside the Corporation 
Organizational Norms  Conformity  Bystander Apathy