MGT 202

Good Governance and Corporate Social

Responsibility
Morality
Morality is the system through which
we determine right and wrong conduct
-- i.e., the guide to good or right
conduct.
Moral Theory
• A moral theory explains why a certain
action is wrong -- or why we ought to
act in certain ways.
• In short, it is a theory of how we
determine right and wrong conduct.
Are moral theories descriptive or
prescriptive ?
In presenting a moral theory, are we merely
describing how people, in their everyday
'doings' and 'thinking,' form a judgement
about what is right and wrong, or are we
prescribing how people ought to make these
judgements?
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Moral Subjectivism

• Right and wrong is determined by what you --

the subject -- just happens to think (or 'feel') is
right or wrong.

• Moral Subjectivism amounts to the denial of

moral principles of any significant kind, and
the possibility of moral criticism and
argumentation.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Cultural Relativism

• Right and wrong is determined by the

particular set of principles or rules the
relevant culture just happens to hold at the
time.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Ethical Egoism

• Right and wrong is determined by what is in

your self-interest. Or, it is immoral to act
contrary to your self-interest.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Divine Command Theory

• Claims that religion is necessary to motivate and

guide people to behave in morally good way, most
take the claim of the necessary connection between
morality and religion to mean that right and wrong
come from the commands of God (or the gods). This
view of morality is known as Divine Command
Theory
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Virtue Ethics

• Right and wrong are characterized in terms

of acting in accordance with the traditional
virtues -- making the good person.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Feminist Ethics

• Right and wrong is to be found in womens'

responses to the relationship of caring.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Utilitarianism

• Right and wrong is determined by the

overall goodness (utility) of the
consequences of action.

• Utilitarianism is a Consequentialist moral

theory.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Utilitarianism-Other key points:
• For Utilitarians, no action is intrinsically right or wrong.

• No person's preferences or interests (including your own, your relatives,

friends, neighbours, etc.) carry a greater weight than any other person's.

• Usually we cannot make the required utilitarian calculation before acting.

So, in most situations, following 'rules of thumb' will produce the best
consequences.

• Democratic and economic principles reflect Utilitarianism.

THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Kantian Theory
• Right and wrong is determined by rationality, giving
universal duties.

• Kantianism is a Non-consequentialist moral theory.

• Basic ideas:
That there is "the supreme principle of morality".
Good and Evil are defined in terms of Law / Duty /
Obligation.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Rights-based Theories

• We are to act in accordance with a set of moral

rights, which we possess simply by being human.

• Rights-based views are connected to Kantianism

and are Non-consequentialist. The basic idea is that
if someone has a right, then others have a
corresponding duty to provide what the right
requires.
THEORIES OF
MORALITY
Contractarianism

• The principles of right and wrong (or Justice)

are those which everyone in society would
agree upon in forming a social contract.
DETERMINIS
M
• In this view, all of reality is already in a sense pre-
determined or pre-existent and, therefore, nothing
new can come into existence.

• It is the theory that everything in the universe is

governed by causal laws.

• That is everything in the universe is entirely

determined so that whatever happens at any given
moment is the effect of some antecedent cause.
DETERMINIS
M
• B.F. Skinner, an extremely influential behavior
psychologists from Harvard, is one of those
who advocated the idea of determinism – that
human freedom is merely an illusion, and all
our behavior is controlled by a network of
environmental, psychological and sociological
stimuli
DETERMINIS
MAccording
• to Baron Henri d’Holbach, “the
actions of man are never free; they are always
the NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE of his
temperament, of the received ideas, and the
notions, either true or false, which he has
formed to himself of happiness.”

• All moral precepts would in such case be

meaningless.” – Walter Stace
DETERMINIS
M
Can we still considered free in the
face of seemingly pre-determined
world?
The Compromise Between Free Will and
Determinism

John Kavanaugh
• Extremes of determinism, states that “if we are all
absolutely determined, then we all must be deluded
at the very heart of our primary experience, for it
seems that almost all normal experience some
degree of freedom in choosing or being able to say
something about their own actions.
What is Ethics?
• It is the study of right and wrong.

• It refers to the systematic endeavor to

understand moral concepts and justify moral
principles and theories.

• It undertakes to analyze such concepts as right,

wrong, permissible, ought, good and evil in
their moral contexts.
What is Ethics?
Philosophical sense, the sense that concerns us, ethics
is two-sided discipline.

• Normative ethics, answers specific moral questions,

determining what is reasonable and therefore what
people should believe.

• Metaethics, examines ethical systems to appraise their

logical foundations and internal consistency.
 Ethics and Religion
• Religion is a set of organized beliefs, practices, and
systems that most often relate to belief and worship of a
controlling force such as a personal god or another
supernatural being.

• Religion is a by-product of cultural Evolutionism.”

• - Robert Wright, The Evolution of God, 2009.

• Religion is not simply an institutionalization of man’s

assent to spontaneous divine revelation; it is also an
apparent off-shoot of his constant adaptation to both his
and his surrounding’s ever changing needs. -Edward
Taylor
 Ethics and Religion
• “Morality may be closely bound up with religion, and
moral behavior is typically held to be essential to the
practice of religion.”

• According to Pojman, both ethics and religion basically

seek the same thing- the establishment of a vivid
foundation and virtuous parameter for the conducts and
affairs of human being.
Ethics and Religion
For instance, on the issue of capital punishment or
death penalty, arguments would normally towed
the line of the 5th commandment engraved in the
well-known tablets found in the book of Exodus-

“Thou shalt not kill”.

Catholicism and Capital Punishment
St. Augustine writes in The City of God:
The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being
allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a
general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an
individual for a limited time. Since the agent of authority is but
a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is
in no way contrary to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"
to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the
State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or
the rule of rational justice.
Catholicism and Capital Punishment
The purposes of criminal punishment are rather
unanimously delineated in the Catholic
tradition. Punishment is held to have a variety
of ends that may conveniently be reduced to the
following four:
• Rehabilitation
• Defense against the criminal
• Deterrence
• Retribution.
Catholicism and Capital Punishment
The purposes of criminal punishment are rather
unanimously delineated in the Catholic
tradition. Punishment is held to have a variety
of ends that may conveniently be reduced to the
following four:
• Rehabilitation
• Defense against the criminal
• Deterrence
• Retribution.
Ethics and Law
• The law is a system of rules that a society or
government develops in order to deal with
crime, business agreements, and social
relationships.

• Law can promote well-being and social

harmony and can resolve conflict of interest,
just as morality does