BECG Unit 1 Notes

Understanding ethics and values and their formation

Ethics
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies the values and behaviour of a person. Value
study of a person is used to determine his/her positive and negative attitude towards life.
Ethics studies concepts like good and evil, responsibility and right and wrong.
Ethics can be distinguished in three categories
Normative ethics- can be used to regulate the right and wrong behaviour of individuals.
Descriptive ethics- also called applied ethics, is used to consider controversial issues, such as
abortion, animal rights, capital punishment and nuclear war.
Metaethics- focuses on the issues of universal truths, ethical judgements and the meaning of
ethical terms.
How should we live? Shall we aim at happiness or at knowledge, virtue or the creation of
beautiful objects? If we choose happiness, will it be our own or the happiness of all? Is it wrong
to clone a human being or to destroy human being embryos in medical research?
Ethics deals with such questions at all levels. Its subject consists of the fundamental issues of
practical decision making and its major concerns include the nature of ultimate value and the
standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong.
Nature of ethics
i) Based on moral and social values: Ethics has its roots in the individual values called as
moral values and collective values also called as social values. As any system or
organization is a sub set of society and ethics are associated with human behaviour it
cannot violate or contradict social and moral values.
ii) Ethics as social science: Ethics is a study under social science. Though there is an
argument whether ethics is a science or an art. But experts are of the opinion that ethics
is more of science than an art because it is a systematic knowledge about moral
behaviour and conduct of human being.
iii) Ethics as normative science: The term normative implies a guide or control of action, so
normative ethics tells us what we ought to do.
iv) Voluntary: Ethics deals with human conduct that is voluntary and not formed naturally
by any persons or his circumstances. It is created due to system and organization and is
voluntarily followed by individuals in it.
v) Externally enforced: Ethics leads to coexistence and smooth functioning of a system,
hence it has to be enforced to a person and is not in born as morality.
vi) Requires education and guidance: Ethics is learned behaviour. Individuals need to be
informed, educated, guided and motivated so that they follow the ethical norms with
its true spirit.
Importance of ethics
i) Developing capability to judge right or wrong.
ii) Develops trust.
iii) Covers all aspects of life.
iv) Guiding actions
v) Balancing instrument for social justice.
Values
In ethics, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of
determining what actions are best to do or what way is best to live, or to describe the
significance of different actions.
Values systems are prospective and prescriptive beliefs, they affect ethical behavior of a
person or are the basis of their intentional activities.
Values in a narrow sense is that which is good, desirable, or worthwhile. Values are the motive
behind purposeful action.
Differences between ethics and values

Business Ethics
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics, it originates from individuals, organizational
statements or from the legal system. It can be said to be the attitude, culture and manner of
doing business by the business community. It is a framework of contemporary organizational
standards, principles, set of values and norms that govern the actions and behaviour of an
individual in the business organization.
According to Andrew Crane, Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and
decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed.
It gives a deeper understanding of what is good and bad, what is moral and immoral or what
actions are right or wrong in the operations of business with respect to its customers,
employees, investors, society and all other stakeholders in order to protect them from harm
and damages to their interests.
Importance of ethics in business
i) Decision making
ii) Standardizing behavior of employees
iii) Greater customer satisfaction
iv) More responsible behavior
v) Improved confidence of stakeholders
vi) Protecting rights
vii) Enhanced corporate image
viii) Long term survival and growth

Personal ethics and Professional ethics

Personal ethics is the code of ethical guidelines that guide you in your personal and
professional life. They often develop from your core values and work ethic into actionable
goals used in a variety of challenging situations.
Your personal ethics can and likely will contain common ethical guidelines that other people
share but they will vary in their level of importance and how to maintain them.
Integrity, Selflessness, Honesty, Loyalty, Self-respect, Empathy and respect
Professional ethics are the guiding principles that are to be followed by or expected to be
followed by the people in that profession. And tells them what they supposed to do and what
they are not supposed to do while working there.
Professional ethics are to be applied by the people of a particular profession if they can be
based on the duties that they have to follow, their skills and specific knowledge.
Professional Ethics’ best example can be the one Doctors take. The Hippocratic Oath, taken by
doctors when they are rewarded the degree in medicine. This oath is one of the ethics that
have to follow before practicing medicine.
Moral overconfidence
• The overconfidence bias is the tendency people have to be more confident in their own
abilities, such as driving, teaching, or spelling, than is objectively reasonable. This
overconfidence also involves matters of character.
• Generally, people believe that they are more ethical than their competitors, co-workers,
and peers. For example, a recent study showed that 50% of business people polled believed
that they were in the top 10% ethically.
• Because of the overconfidence bias, people will often take ethical issues lightly. They simply
assume that they have good character and will therefore do the right thing when they
encounter ethical challenges. In fact, studies show that the overconfidence bias causes
people to overestimate how much, and how often, they will donate money or volunteer
their time to charities.
• So, overconfidence in our own moral character can cause us to act without proper
reflection. And that is when we are most likely to act unethically.

Moral justification
Moral justification is, simply put, a process whereby a person who is evaluating a morally
questionable act attempts to make it seem right. This person looks for a way to shine a
favorable light on such an act in order to maintain a clear conscience.
Moral justification is all about related to the judgement we pass based on own age old
principles and the regulations which are accepted by majority section under that moral.
For example in some places we find girls getting married at an early age which is considered
as moral as per their thoughts. While it is considered that girls should not be married at an
early age according to some people.

Moral disengagement
Moral disengagement is the process by which an individual convinces him\herself that ethical
standards do not apply to him\herself within a particular situation or context.
Moral disengagement can be broken down into four categories:
1. Moral justification
2. Diffusing responsibility
Eg: My boss told me to do it.
3. Mis-presenting injurious consequences
Eg: it’s not a big deal.
4. Dehumanizing the victim
Eg: if people have their privacy violated, it’s probably because they have not taken
adequate precautions to protect it.

Unethical behavior
Unethical behavior is an action that falls outside of what is considered right or proper for a
person, a profession or an industry. Individuals can behave unethically as can businesses,
professionals and politicians. However, ones definition of unethical depends on their own
ethical standards and the standards of their society.

Unethical behavior among individuals

 Someone lies to their spouse about how much money they spent.
 An employee steals money from the pretty cash drawer at work.
 Friends talk about another friend behind his back.
Unethical behavior among businesses
 A chemical company dumps pollutants into the water supply rather than cleaning up the
pollution properly.
 Someone in power uses their position to sexually harass a subordinate.
 Large companies engage in price fixing to force smaller competitors out of business.
Unethical behavior by professionals
 A physician doesn’t tell a patient his true diagnosis because it may reveal that there was a
mistake in his care.
 A doctor uses a patient as a teaching tool for students for long periods of time without the
permission of the patient or patient’s family.
 A government officer taking the bribe for doing a service.