Business Ethics

Class #2
MEANING, DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF ETHICS
AND MORALS

Business Ethics: Principles and

practices

By: Daniel Albuquerque

 Generally,ethics and moral are used
as synonyms. However, in formal
study, we need to understand the
meaning of the terms in a qualified
way so as to make our subject of
study precise and well defined.
Meaning

The word moral (s) is delivered from

the Latin root moralis, which implies
custom. In other words, it refers to a
behavior that is accepted or rejected
due to an accepted social custom.
The word ethics stems from the
Greek word ethike, which
attributes to a social environment,
referred to as ethos or social
milieu. This latter meaning
embraces more than mere custom.
It refers to everything that is part
and parcel of society and not just
what is allowed or forbidden.
Usage

 However, the terms are intrinsically not

different. It may be true that the terms
(ethics and morals) sound different but
they refer to the same social reality
wherein a certain body of accepted norms
forms a code of conduct in society.
Ethics: rules that
a social system
provides us

• Moral: are our

own principles

• Ethics and moral:

conduct in society
Evolution of Ethics

 Socialconduct has evolved along with the

evolution of society. When your elders tell
you 'don't cheat', they are referring to a
social code of conduct. Social conduct has
developed in society over hundreds of
years.
 Acceptable behavior is promoted and elevated
as a social value, and unacceptable behavior is
rejected and condemned.

 The laws of a country are based on the

customs or moral codes of its society.

 The object of the social of conduct is to

maintain, promote, and elevate harmonious
relationship.
  Classifications of Ethics

ETHICS
Systematic study of moral conduct
Normative ethics Applied Ethics Meta-ethics
Study of moral Study of special Cognitive study of the
standards to issues-business ultimate principles of
determinate right and ethics, their origin and
ethics.
wrong. meaning.
Scope: Specific human
Scope: General moral Conceptual scope:
action.
science. Philosophy.
What is business ethics?
 What is business ethics?
 Businessethics, it has been claimed, is
as oxymoron (Collins 1994). To say that
business ethics is an oxymoron suggest
that there are not, or cannot be,
ethics in business: that business is in
some way unethical (that business is
inherent bad).
Various scandals concerning
undesirable business activities, such
as the pollution of rivers with
industrial chemicals, the exploitation
of sweatshop workers, the payment
of bribes of government officials,
have highlighted the unethical way in
which some firms have gone about
their business.
However, just because such
malpractices take place does
not mean that there are not
some kinds of values or
principles driving such
decisions.
Business ethics is the study of
business situations, activities, and
decisions where issues of right and
wrong are addressed.
 Business ethics do not mean only
commercial business, but also
government organizations, pressure
groups, not-for-profit business,
charities, and other organizations.
The McDonald´s case:

McEthics in Europe and Asia: should

McDonal’s extend its response to
ethical criticism in Europe?
 NEXT CLASS

 VIDEO:Minimalism, a documentary about

the important things.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ruL5o
e8ZX8&t=943s
 Class activity: Debate
Business Ethics
Class #3
There are things money
CAN´T buy for everything
else…
There are things money
can´t buy… (Michael Sandel)

A prison cell upgrade (legal

and ilegal) $82 USD Santa
Monica CA

www.google.com.co
 Accessto the carpool
lane while driving solo
$8 Minneapolis

www.google.com.co
  Theservices of an Indian
surrogate mother to
carry pregnancy $6,250
www.google.com.co
  The right to
immigrate to the
United States $
500,000 USD
www.google.com.co
  The right to emit a
metric ton of carbon
into the atmosphere 13€

www.google.com.co
  The right to shoot an
endangered black rhino
$150,000 USD

www.google.com.co
  Admission of your
child to a prestigious
university
Finacial contributions

www.google.com.co
Almost everything can be bought and sold…

Market

Govern
our
lives
Market
values
How did this happen?
 Cold War (unrivaled thinking)
Began in the 80´s Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
Continued in the 90´s Market- friendly liberalism

Harry Truman was the first American president that fight the Cold
War, he fought against the communism.

The biggest change in the Cold War took place in 1895 when Mijail
Gorbachov became the leader of the Soviet Union, he signed an
agreement we the United States to destroy nuclear missiles.
 The Berlin Wall, the greatest symbol of communist depression was
demolished on November 9 of 1989. In less than a year East and
West Germany became one nation again. A few weeks after that the
Cold War was over.

 With the end of the Cold War, communism falls and capitalism
triumphs.

 Ronald Reagan the last president of the Cold War – The Reagan
presidency started in January 1981 (1989) with the aim of
overwhelming communism around the world.

 Margaret Thatcher - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from

1979 to 1990.
 neoliberalism: liberation of the economy, free trade in
general.
 Perestroika is known as the economic reform aimed
at developing a new structure of the internal
economy of the Soviet Union.

 Perestroika (Russian word meaning reform) was a

political movement initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, to
reform the economy and the political system of the
USSR (Soviet Socialist Republics)

 Perestroika: move from socialism to capitalism

 Capitalism → Mechanism for organizing the
production and distribution of goods and services
→ affluence and prosperity

AS THE RESULT….
 Market values→ greater role in our social life
 The logic of buying and selling → Governs THE
WHOLE LIFE!
 After the Cold War we thought that the market dominated
everything, that it was perfect. In the 2008 crisis, they
wondered what happened with that perfection?
The financial crisis in 2008…
 The Great Depression
 Doubt on the markets ability to allocate risk efficiently
WHY?
 Detached from morals (greed)
SOLUTION
 We need to reconnect them → integrity and
responsibility
bankers and Wall Street executives
Tougher regulations
DID IT WORK? Spheres they don´t BELONG TO!
 Some economists argue that the financial crisis of 2008 was
the result of Greed of Wall Street top executives

What happened
 the market was far from morals.

 Solution: reconnect morale and markets

 take the market out of all the places where they do not
belong: health, education…
The reach of the markets
 Markets have invaded other areas of our lives, such as:
Health
Education
Public safety
National security
Criminal justice
Environmental protection
Procreation
 Why to worry about it?

 1) About inequality

 2) To stop the corrosive tendency of markets

→Putting a price on everything can corrupt
them
(e.g Paying kids to read; auctioning seats in college)

CONCLUSION: Markets are NOT inert!→ Corrupt our values!

What kind of values should we
promote?
 Govern - our social and civic life

 To decide what goods should be bought and sold→

instruments of profit and use

E.g human beings →Slavery (commodities, bought and

sold and auction)

human beings→ worthy of dignity and respect

Politics→ votes
 When we humans become an
instrument of use and gain we are
treating as a commodity.
 Rethink the role that
markets should play

More than A public debate about

what it means to keep
inveigh markets in their place
against To think through the
moral of the markets
greed…
To ask whether there
are some things money
SHOULD NOT BUY!
 Market Being a
Free
market
economy Society
society

-produce - buy

-our values as a society have been

corrupted by the market
-Free society?
Obstacles

1) The persisting power of market thinking.

( even in the aftermath of the 2008
financial crisis the worst downturn since
the Great Depression→ markets don´t
judge)

2) Emptiness of our public discourse.

Has the era of market
triumphalism
come to end?

• The occupy of Wall

Street
(Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing protest
movement that began on September 17, 2011, in Zuccotti
Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial
district, against economic inequality.)
CONCLUSIONS
 Some of the good things in life are corrupted or degraded if
turned into commodities

 We need to decide how to value health, education, family life,

civic duties.

 Moral and political questions not only economic ones.

 To debate case by case the moral meaning of these goods and

how to value them.

 To switch from having a market economy to being a market

society
*Rol of politics empty of moral and spiritual content
Class activity: dabate
Next class:
 Midterm Exam #1
 Study case # 2
The Geatest Happiness principle/
Utilitarianism” M. Sandel
REFERENCES
 SANDEL J. Michael, What money can´t
buy (2.013) Published by Farrar, Straus
and Giroux