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6-2 Moral Philosophies There are many moral philosophies, but because a detailed study of all of them is beyond the scope of this book, we will limit our discussion to those that are most applicable to the study of business ethics. Our approach focuses on the most basic concepts needed to help you understand the ethical decision making process in business. We do not prescribe the use of any particular moral philosophy, for there is no one correct way to resolve ethical issues in business.

To help you understand how the moral philosophies discussed in this chapter may be applied in decision making, we use a hypothetical situation as an illustration. Suppose that Sam Colt, a sales representative, is preparing a sales presentation for his firm, Midwest Hardware, which manufactures nuts and bolts. Sam hopes to obtain a large sale from a construction firm that is building a bridge across the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri. The bolts manufactured by Midwest Hardware have a 3 percent defect rate, which, although acceptable in the industry, makes them unsuitable for use in certain types of projects, such as those that may be subject to sudden, severe stress. The new bridge will be located near the New Madrid Fault line, the source of the United States’ greatest earthquake in 1811. The epicenter of that earthquake, which caused extensive damage and altered the flow of the Mississippi, is less than 200 miles from the new bridge site. Earthquake experts believe there is a 50 percent chance that an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7 will occur somewhere along the New Madrid Fault by the year 2030. Bridge construction in the area is not regulated by earthquake codes, however. If Sam wins the sale, he will earn a commission of $25,000 on top of his regular salary. But if he tells the contractor about the defect rate, Midwest may lose the sale to a competitor that markets bolts with a lower defect rate. Sam’s ethical issue is whether to point out to the bridge contractor that, in the event of an earthquake, some Midwest bolts could fail, possibly resulting in the collapse of the bridge.

We will come back to this illustration as we discuss particular moral philosophies, asking how Sam Colt might use each philosophy to resolve his ethical issue. We don’t judge the quality of Sam’s decision, and we do not advocate any one moral philosophy; in fact, this illustration and Sam’s decision rationales are necessarily simplistic as well as hypothetical. In reality, the decision maker would probably have many more factors to consider in making his or her choice and thus might reach a different decision. We introduce the concept of goodness and several types of moral philosophy: teleology, deontology, the relativist perspective, virtue ethics, and justice (see Table 6-1).

Table 6-1

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A Comparison of the Philosophies Used in Business Decisions

Teleology Stipulates acts are morally right or acceptable if they produce some desired result, such as realization of self-interest or utility

Egoism Defines right or acceptable actions as those that maximize a particular person’s self-interest as defined by the individual

Utilitarianism Defines right or acceptable actions as those that maximize total utility, or the greatest good for the greatest number of people

Deontology Focuses on the preservation of individual rights and on the intentions associated with a particular behavior rather than on its consequences

Relativist Evaluates ethicalness subjectively on the basis of individual and group experiences

Virtue ethics Assumes what is moral in a given situation is not only what conventional morality requires but also what the mature person with a “good” moral character deems appropriate

Justice Evaluates ethicalness on the basis of fairness: distributive, procedural, and interactional