Ethics and Business

Introduction
Ethics in the Business Environment
• Business ethics is the applied ethics discipline that
focuses on the moral aspects concerning business
activity.
• Business ethics are carried out to ensure that a
specific required level of trust exists between
consumers and various forms of market participants
with businesses.
• Business ethics is one of the most important aspects
of success in the long run.
Business Ethics as Decision-making
• Business ethics lays out the acceptable behavior
organizations expect to see from their
employees.
• Decision-making in business ethics often compels
organizations to recognize specific ethical
standards.
Business Ethics as Decision-making
There are five types of ethical standards: utilitarian, rights,
fairness or justice, common good, and virtue.
• Utilitarian - principle that seeks to do the most good and restrict the amount of harm
for each individual
• Rights - protects and respects the moral rights of individuals impacted by decisions
• Fair or just - attempts to generate equality among all individuals
• Common good - centers on making society as a whole better
• Virtue - focuses on the ideal characteristics required for promoting employees for the
company
Business Ethics as Personal Integrity
and Social Responsibility
• Integrity is an internal system of principles
which guides one’s behavior with intrinsic
benefits.
• Integrity is a choice instead of an obligation.
• Personal integrity is the base for ethics - good
business ethics encourages integrity.
Business Ethics as Personal Integrity
and Social Responsibility
• The approach of social responsibility is based
on a system of ethics, in which decisions and
actions must be ethically ratified before
proceeding.
• If the decision or action brings about harm to
society or the environment then it would be
regarded as socially irresponsible.
• Maintaining social responsibility within an
organization ensures the integrity of society
and the environment are protected.
Ethics and the Law
• Laws are rules of behavior authorized by governments
that demonstrate what people can or cannot do in the
workplace.
• Laws can be morally wrong or unethical as observed in
controversial issues like abortion, slavery, and child
labor.
• The central difference between ethical and legal
business practices is that the law does not completely
address all ethical issues that businesses face.
• Legal practices include processes and policies to comply
with the law, like honesty and transparency in keeping
financial accounts.
Ethics as Practical Reason
• Theoretical reason
– in use when one engages in reasoning that is focused on the resolution of
questions of explanation and prediction.
– asks why events have occurred; seeks to find out what is going to happen in
the future.
– focused on matters of fact and their explanation.

• Theoretical reason tries to gauge the way

things are.
Ethics as Practical Reason
Practical Reason
– focused on matters of value, of what it would be advantageous to do rather than matters
of fact and their explanation.
– one seeks to assess and evaluate their reasons for action, the considerations that speak
for and against other courses of action that are open to them.

Practical reason determines how the world should be

and what individuals should do.