Business ethics essay

Business Ethics

Session III: Business Ethics Theories

Business Ethics Theories

Today’s schedule

1. Which are the theories of business discussed last week?

2. Business Ethics Theories: Part 2

3. Case Study: Where’s the Beef?

Business Ethics Theories

Classical ethical theories (part 1):

Egoism

Utilitarianism

Ethics of Duties

Natural Rights

Contemporary ethical theories (part 2):

Virtue ethics

Feminist ethics

Discourse ethics

Postmodern ethics

Business Ethics Theories Virtue Ethics

Focus on the character of the decision-maker.

A person that has:

• intellectual virtues (e.g. wisdom) and

• moral virtues (e.g. honesty, friendship, mercy, loyalty, modesty, patience)

… is expected to behave and decide in a morally desirable manner.

Authors:

Aristotle (384-322 BC),

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274),

David Hume (1711-1776),

Amartya Sen (*1933).

Business Ethics Theories Person rather than action based:

• it looks at the virtue or moral character of the person carrying out an action, rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the consequences of particular actions.

Does not only deal with the rightness or wrongness of individual actions:

• it provides guidance as to the sort of characteristics and behaviours a good person will seek to achieve.

In that way, virtue ethics is concerned with the whole of a person's life, rather than particular episodes or actions.

A good person is someone who lives virtuously - who possesses and lives the virtues.

Business Ethics Theories Principles of Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics teaches:

• An action is only right if it is an action that a virtuous person would carry out in the same circumstances.

• A virtuous person is a person who acts virtuously

• A person acts virtuously if they "possess and live the virtues"

• A virtue is a moral characteristic that a person needs to live well.

• Most virtue theorists would also insist that the virtuous person is one who acts in a virtuous way as the result of rational thought (rather than, say, instinct).

Virtues What does a virtuous person do?

• There is a common set of virtues for all human beings.

• These virtues are natural to mature human beings - even if they are hard to acquire.

• Problem - lists of virtues from different times in history and different societies show significant differences.

The traditional list of cardinal virtues was:

• Prudence

• Justice

• Fortitude / Bravery

• Temperance

Business Ethics Theories

Business Ethics Theories • The modern theologian James F Keenan suggests:

• Justice – Justice requires us to treat all human beings equally and impartially.

• Fidelity – Fidelity requires that we treat people closer to us with special care.

• Self-care – We each have a unique responsibility to care for ourselves, affectively,

mentally, physically, and spiritually.

• Prudence – The prudent person must always consider Justice, Fidelity and Self-

care.

– The prudent person must always look for opportunities to acquire more of the other three virtues

Business Ethics Theories

Good points of virtue ethics

• It centres ethics on the person and what it means to be human

• It includes the whole of a person's life

Business Ethics Theories

Bad points of virtue ethics • it doesn't provide clear guidance on what to do in moral

dilemmas

– although it does provide general guidance on how to be a good person

– presumably a totally virtuous person would know what to do and we could consider them a suitable role model to guide us

• there is no general agreement on what the virtues are

– and it may be that any list of virtues will be

relative to the culture in which it is being drawn up.

Business Ethics Theories In conclusion:

• The way to build a good society is to help its members to be good people, rather than to use laws and punishments to prevent or deter bad actions.

• But it wouldn't be helpful if a person had to be a saint to count as virtuous:

• For virtue theory to be really useful it needs to suggest only a minimum set of characteristics that a person needs to possess in order to be regarded as virtuous.

• “...being virtuous is more than having a particular habit of acting, e.g. generosity. Rather, it means having a fundamental set of related virtues that

enable a person to live and act morally well”*

• *James F Keenan, Proposing Cardinal Virtues, Theological Studies, 1995

Business Ethics Theories Feminist Ethics

Assumption: Men and women have fairly different attitudes towards organizing social life. Thus, they approach ethical conflicts differently.

Feminist ethics assumes that individuals are embedded in a network of interpersonal relations.

Consequently, solutions to ethical conflicts are sought that maintain the connectedness and reflect responsibility towards the network’s members.

Guiding principles: empathy, harmonious and healthy social relationships, care for one another, avoidance of harm.

Business Ethics Theories

Background to Feminist Ethics

• Traditional ethics pre-eminently focusses on men's perspective with little regard for women's viewpoints.

• Caring and the moral issues of private life and family responsibilities were traditionally regarded as trivial matters.

• Generally, (unfortunately) women are portrayed as ethically immature and shallow in comparison to men.

Business Ethics Theories

Background to Feminist Ethics

Traditional ethics prizes masculine cultural traits like:

• independence, autonomy, intellect, will, wariness, hierarchy, domination etc.

and gives less weight to culturally feminine traits like:

• interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion, trust, absence of hierarchy, nature, joy, peace, and life.

Business Ethics Theories Background to Feminist Ethics

• Traditional ethics has a “male” orientated convention in which moral reasoning is viewed through a framework of rules, rights, universality, and impartiality.

• The “female” approaches to moral reasoning emphasise relationships, responsibilities, particularity, and partiality.

Business Ethics theories

Discourse ethics

Most ethical theories are normative theories. They imply certain values (e.g. hedonist values, liberal rights or feminist values).

In a diverse intercultural environment individual values are manifold and can be contradictory.

Discourse ethics aims to solve ethical problems by providing a process of norm generation through rational reflection on the real-life experience of all relevant participants.

Business Ethics Theories

Steinmann & Löhr (1994)

Dialogues are a process to find appropriate solutions for ethical conflicts on a day-to-day basis.

The reflection should start from the real-life experience, rather than discussion belief systems which often leads to lasting disagreements.

The participants should try to approximate an “ideal discourse” as defined by Habermas (1999).

The ultimate goal of business ethics is a peaceful settlement of conflicts.

Business Ethics Theories Habermas (1999)

Pre-requisite for an ideal discourse:

• Each speaker must legitimately represent the interest for which he or she claims to speak.

• Each must speak sincerely.

• Each statement must be accurate.

• Each must make statements that are comprehensible to the others.

In addition:

• Everybody who is affected by the outcome of the discourse should be able to participate in it.

 In an ideal speech situation the rationality of the participants will lead to a „non-coercive coercion of the best argument“ (Habermas, 1983).

Business Ethics Theories Postmodern Ethics

Postmodern thinkers criticize the “grand narratives” of society (Lyotard, 1984) such as liberalism, communism, socialism, rationalism, capitalism, etc.

They are too ambitious, optimistic and reductionists.

Thus, modern thinkers cannot explain the complex reality of human existence.

Postmodern ethics locates morality beyond the sphere of rationality in a “moral impulse” towards others (Bauman, 1993).

It encourages to question everyday practices and rules, to listen to and follow emotions, inner convictions and “gut feelings” about what is right and wrong in a particular situation.

Business Ethics Theories Postmodern Ethics

• Holistic approach: No separation of private and professional realm.

• Examples rather than principles.

• Think local, act local. General principles that are applicable to each and every situation do not exist. Problems and conflicts should be solved referring to their specific context.

• Preliminary character of all decisions. Since any situation can change, every solution/decision has to be evaluated and probably changed after some time. Ethical reasoning is a constant learning process.

Contemporary Ethics Theories

Virtue ethics Feminist ethics Discourse ethics Postmodern

ethics

Contributors Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, David

Hume, Amartya

Sen.

Carol Gilligan. Jürgen Habermas,

Peter Ulrich, Horst

Steinmann & Albert

Löhr.

Zygmunt Bauman.

Focus Character of the decision-maker.

Decision-making is

embedded in a

social context.

Discourse as a

process for norm

generation.

Complexity and

diversity of the

social world.

Criteria Intellectual and moral virtues.

Healthy

relationships,

empathy, care,

avoidance of harm.

Non-coercion

coercion of the best

argument.

Moral impulse.

Classical Ethical Theories

CASE STUDY

Where’s the Beef?