Topic 1

The Nature of Morality

Reading:
Chapter 1 The nature of morality: Why ethics in business matter
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the nature of morality

• Define and understand ethics, including business
and organisational ethics
• Understand the role of spirituality in contemporary
business, including international business
• Understand the role of values and individual
responsibility in morality and ethics
Ethics

‘How are we to relate to each other in order to

ensure that our individual and collective
wellbeing is enhanced?’
 How should I live my life?
 What sort of person should I strive to be?
 What goals should I pursue?
 What standards or principles should I live by?
Ethics cont.

Ethics deals with:

Individual character
Moral rules that govern us
Questions of right and wrong
Fairness and unfairness
Ethics cont.

Good and bad

Duty and obligation
Justice and injustice
Moral responsibility
Values that should guide us
Business and organisational ethics

Business ethics is the study of what constitutes right and

wrong, or good and bad, human conduct in a business
context.

An organisation is a group of people working together to

achieve a common purpose.

Organisations may or may not be profit oriented.

Moral versus non-moral standards

Factual vs. moral questions

When dealing with moral questions, we appeal to

moral standards.

These standards differ from other kinds of standards

because they concern behaviour that is of serious
consequence to human welfare.
Moral standards

Moral behaviour can profoundly benefit people

and immoral behaviour can do harm.

 Human beings should be treated with dignity and

respect.
MORAL STANDARDS CONT.

Are products healthful or harmful?

Are work conditions safe or dangerous?
Are personnel procedures biased or fair?
Is privacy respected or invaded?

These are all matters that seriously affect human well-

being, and they are explored in this subject.
Moral standards cont.

Moral standards take priority over other

standards.

Including self interest, because it is the nature of

our relations to each other that is at the centre of
ethical concern.
Moral standards cont.

The soundness of moral standards depends

upon the adequacy of the reasons or the
quality of the arguments that support them.

 Arguments that are derived from philosophers’

attempts to determine which moral principles are
best.
Morality

Morality differs from etiquette.

Morality differs from the law.

Morality differs from professional codes of

ethics.
Morality and etiquette

• Etiquette refers to acceptable behaviour within a

society.

Rules of etiquette are generally non-moral in character.

But rules of etiquette can have moral implications.

Defining the law

Statutes
 Laws enacted by legislative bodies
Regulations
 Delegated legislation or laws enacted by authorised bodies
Common law
 Based on historical decisions that set precedents
Constitutional law
 Court rulings on the requirements of the Constitution
Morality and the law

Complying with the law does not necessarily

guarantee moral behaviour, just as breaking the law
does not always result in immoral behaviour.

Acting immorally does not always result in illegal

behaviour, just as acting morally does not
necessarily guarantee the legality of an action.
MORALITY AND THE LAW CONT.

Some philosophers believe that the illegality of

an action makes it morally wrong, even if the
action would normally be judged as morally
acceptable.
But nonconformity to law is not always immoral;
there are circumstances where breaching a law
might be morally permissible.
Morality and the law cont.

An action can be illegal but morally right:

 Helping a Jewish family in Nazi Germany

 Non-adherence to segregation laws in the US

Morality and the law cont.

• An action that is legal can be morally wrong:

Failure of a person with knowledge of first aid to render

assistance at the scene of an accident, when there is no
valid reason not to help.
Morality and the law cont.

Laws codify a society’s customs, ideals, norms and

moral values.

Laws are not sufficient to establish the moral

standards to guide us.
The law is too blunt an instrument to provide moral
guidance.
It provides a base from which to form our moral
standards, but it does not encompass all possible
breaches of moral conduct.
Morality and professional codes

Professional codes of conduct are rules designed to

govern a given profession.

Professionals are understood to have agreed to be

bound by these rules.
Violation of the professional code may result in the
disapproval of one’s peers and, in serious cases, loss of
one’s licence to practise that profession.
Professional codes

Are often too vague to be of practical use

Can consist of a mix of purely moral rules,

professional etiquette and restrictions designed to
benefit the profession’s economic interests

Many are seen merely as tools for self promotion

ACQUIRING MORAL STANDARDS

Our early upbringing

The behaviour of those around us
The moral standards of our culture
Our own experiences, and our critical
reflections on those experiences
Can our principles withstand critical scrutiny?
Religion, spirituality and morality

Religion involves not only a formal system of

worship but also prescriptions for social
relationships.

There is a form of The Golden Rule: ‘Do unto

others as you would have them do unto you’
in all the major religions of the world.
Religion, spirituality and morality cont.

Religious ideals are general and difficult to

translate into precise policies.

Religious principles are accepted purely on the

basis of faith; moral principles are accepted
after careful rational analysis.
Religion, spirituality and morality cont.

Research indicates that spirituality has an

impact on ethical ways of doing things.
While some believed that morality and religion or
spirituality are intertwined, others considered that
moral values and ethics are not necessarily derived
from a particular religion or spirituality (Issa, 2009).
Ethical relativism

What is right is defined by what a society says

is right.
Argues that ‘might is right’
No ethical progress
Undermines moral reasoning
What is right in one culture may be wrong in
another.
RELATIVISM AND THE ‘GAME’ OF
BUSINESS

‘Business has its own moral standards, and it

should only be judged by those standards’.
Any specialised activity has its own rules and
standards, but the morality of those rules and
standards should still be subject to evaluation.
Business activity affects those who have not chosen
to play the ‘game’.