Week 3 Questions

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Chapter6.IndividualFactorsMoralPhilosophiesandValues.pptx

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Part Three The Decision Making Process

Chapter 6 Individual Factors: Moral Philosophies And Values

Learning Objectives

Understand how moral philosophies and values influence individual and group ethical decision making in business

Compare and contrast the teleological, deontological, virtue, and justice perspectives of moral philosophy

Discuss the impact of philosophies on business ethics

Recognize the stages of cognitive moral development and its shortcomings

Introduce white-collar crime as it relates to moral philosophies, values, and corporate culture

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Concept Definitions (1 of 4)

Moral philosophy: Specific principles or values people use to decide what is right and wrong. Guidelines for “determining how conflicts in human interests are to be settled and for optimizing mutual benefit of people living together in groups.”

Economic value orientation: Associated with values quantified by monetary means. If an act produces more economic value for its effort, then it should be accepted as ethical.

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Concept Definitions (2 of 4)

Idealism: Efforts required to account for all objects in nature and experience and to assign them a higher order of existence.

Realism: An external world exists independent of our perceptions. It assumes humankind is not naturally benevolent and kind, but instead inherently self-centered and competitive.

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Concept Definitions (3 of 4)

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

Descriptive relativism: Relates to observations of other cultures. Different cultures exhibit different norms, customs, and values, but these observations say nothing about the higher questions of ethical justification.

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Concept Definitions (4 of 4)

Meta-ethical relativism: People naturally see situations from their own perspectives, meaning there is no objective way of resolving ethical disputes between different value systems and individuals.

Normative relativism: Assumes one person’s opinion is as good as another’s.

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Moral Philosophies and Terms (1 of 3)

Monists: Believe only one thing is intrinsically good.

Hedonism: The idea that pleasure is the ultimate good, or the best moral end involves the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. Hedonism defines right or acceptable behavior as that which maximizes personal pleasure.

Quantitative hedonists: More pleasure is better.

Qualitative hedonists: It is possible to get too much of a good thing (such as pleasure).

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Moral Philosophies and Terms (2 of 3)

Pluralists: Believe two or more things are intrinsically good.

Plato: The good life is a mixture of moderation and fitness, proportion and beauty, intelligence and wisdom, sciences and arts, and pure pleasures of the soul.

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Moral Philosophies and Terms (3 of 3)

Instrumentalists: Reject the ends/means argument and argue ends, purposes, or outcomes are intrinsically good in and of themselves (John Dewey: Almost any action can be an end or a mean).

Goodness theories: Focus on the end result of actions and the goodness or happiness created by them.

Obligation theories: Emphasize the means and motives by which actions are justified (Teleology and Deontology).

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Obligation Theories: Teleology (1 of 2)

Teleology: 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.

Enlightened egoism: Take a long-range perspective and allow for the well-being of others although their own self-interest remains paramount.

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Obligation Theories: Teleology (2 of 2)

Teleology

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

Rule utilitarianism: Determines behavior on the basis of principles or rules designed to promote the greatest utility, rather than on individual examinations of each situation they encounter.

Act utilitarianism: Examine specific actions, rather than the general rules governing them, to assess whether they will result in the greatest utility.

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Obligation Theories: Deontology (1 of 2)

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

Regard certain behaviors as inherently right as defined by self or extraterrestrial.

Nonconsequentialism: A system of ethics based on respect for persons. (Another reference for deontology.)

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Obligation Theories: Deontology (2 of 2)

Categorical imperative: “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”

Rule deontologists: Believe conformity to general moral principles based on logic determines ethicalness.

Act deontologists: Actions are the proper basis to judge morality or ethicalness and requires a person use equity, fairness, and impartiality when making and enforcing decisions.

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Virtue Ethics (1 of 2)

Virtue ethics: What is moral in a given situation is not only what conventional morality requires but what a person with a “good” moral character deems appropriate.

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Virtue Ethics (2 of 2)

Virtue ethics approach to business:

Good corporate ethics programs encourage individual virtue and integrity.

By the employee’s role in the community (organization), these virtues form a good person.

An individual’s ultimate purpose is to serve society’s demands and the public good and be rewarded in his or her career.

The well-being of the community goes hand in hand with individual excellence.

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Justice Theories

Justice: Fair treatment and due reward in accordance with ethical or legal standards, including the disposition to deal with perceived injustices of others.

Based on the perceived rights of individuals and on the intentions of the people involved in a business interaction.

Evaluates ethicalness on the basis of fairness.

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TABLE 6-3 Types of Justice

Justice Type	Areas of Emphasis
Distributive justice: Based on the evaluation of outcomes or results of the business relationship	Benefits derived Equity in rewards
Procedural justice: Based on the processes and activities that produce the outcome or results	Decision making process Level of access, openness, and participation
Interactional justice: Based on relationships and the treatment of others	Accuracy of information Truthfulness, respect, and courtesy in the process

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Cognitive Moral Development and Limitations (1 of 4)

Stage 1: Punishment and obedience: Right and wrong are not connected with any higher order or philosophy but rather with a person who has power.

Stage 2: Individual instrumental purpose and exchange: Right is what serves his or her own needs. Individuals evaluate behavior on the basis of its fairness to them.

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Cognitive Moral Development and Limitations (2 of 4)

Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and conformity: Emphasize the interests of others rather than simply those of themselves, although ethical motivation is still derived from obedience to rules.

Stage 4: Social system and conscience maintenance: Determine what is right by considering their duty to society, not just to certain other people. Duty, respect for authority, and the maintenance of the social order become the focal points at this stage.

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Cognitive Moral Development and Limitations (3 of 4)

Stage 5: Prior rights, social contract, or utility: Individuals are concerned with upholding the basic rights, values, and legal contracts of society. Individuals feel a sense of obligation or commitment to other groups and recognize that in some cases legal and moral points of view may conflict.

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Cognitive Moral Development and Limitations (4 of 4)

Stage 6: Universal ethical principles: Right is determined by universal ethical principles everyone should follow. People have certain inalienable rights that are universal in nature and consequence. These rights, laws, or social agreements are valid not because of a particular society’s laws or customs, but because they rest on the premise of universality.

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White-Collar Crime (WCC) (1 of 3)

Does more damage in monetary and emotional loss in one year than violent crimes do over several years combined.

Tend to be highly educated, in positions of power, trust, respectability, and responsibility.

The corporate culture can transcend the individuals beliefs.

With time, patterns become institutionalized sometimes encouraging unethical behaviors.

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White-Collar Crime (WCC) (2 of 3)

The views and behaviors of an individual’s acquaintances within an organization can affect crime.

For companies with a high number of ethical or unethical employees, people who are undecided about their behavior (about 40 percent of businesspeople) are more likely go along with their coworkers.

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White-Collar Crime (WCC) (3 of 3)

Some businesspeople may have inherently criminal personalities. Corporate psychopaths, or managers who are nonviolent, selfish, and remorseless, exist in many large corporations.

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TABLE 6-6 Common Justifications for White Collar Crime

TABLE 6–6 Common Justifications for White-Collar Crime

1. Denial of responsibility. (Everyone can, with varying degrees of plausibility, point the finger at someone else.)

2. Denial of injury. (White-collar criminals often never meet or interact with those who are harmed by their actions.)

3. Denial of the victim. (The offender is playing tit-for-tat and claims to be responding to a prior offense inflicted by the supposed victim.)

4. Condemnation of the condemners. (Executives dispute the legitimacy of the laws under which they are charged, or impugn the motives of the prosecutors who enforce them.)

5. Appeal to a higher authority. (“l did it for my family” remains a popular excuse.)

6. Everyone else is doing it. (Because of the highly competitive marketplace, certain pressures exist to perform that may drive people to break the law.)

7. Entitlement. (Criminals simply deny the authority of the laws they have broken.)

Source: Based on Daniel J. Curran and Claire M. Renzetti, Theories of Crime (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1994).

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