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BUSI570 FORUM 2
BUSI570 Forum 2
Brandon M. Johnson
School of Business, Liberty University
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BUSI570 FORUM 2
Introduction
Companies are built to operate all aspects by seeing a higher value of the present and
tending to overlook the value of all gains and losses. 2 Timothy 3:16 shares with us that God
breathes out all scripture and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in
righteousness (King James Bible, 2017). Our society changes what is tolerated as ethics and
morally right. These changes add to the complex landscape businesses have to operate. What
seemed perfectly okay in ethics last year could end up being a reason a business is canceled
today. This perspective delivers that we have situated selves, acting out of feelings and meanings
that are important in our lives, and in doing so, we are inevitably bound by moral ties we have
not chosen. Hill (2018) argues that as Christians cannot propel religious ethics, an unwilling
society is highly unlikely where the majority determines their laws' content. Ethics through
morality and law in business is a detailed but straightforward moral guide for society to follow.
The need for practical ethics allows us to evaluate personal feelings, meanings, and obligations
when we debate moral issues, thereby encouraging us to transcend divisions between utilitarian
and principle-based reasoning.
Business Morality
Hill (2018) stated that Harry Truman said to do right and risk the consequences; this
statement is ever so true today as it was the days after dropping the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki
and Hiroshima. This quote does not just capture the attitude to be successful in the business
world but captures the needed perspective from management to be successful in life. The
business society maintains the risks to succeed while still preserving the right side of operating
their business. Hill (2018) points out that they expect fair play when promised a particular
product or service and thus become prey to the unscrupulous. Taking care of employees,
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producing quality products for the consumer to rely on, and building repeat business. Young, C.
(2019) explains that in business ethics, the focus is on the decision-making process for
determining the right and wrong at that moment. By weighing the pros and cons from
competitive values and interests of the company as a whole. Morality is a code of behavior
displayed through the employer's employees to their products to know where the company stands
on the morality and ethical connection with the consumer.
Business Law
Hill (2018) shared a Grant Gilmore quote that there will be no law in heaven, and the lion
will lie down with the lamb. In hell, there will be nothing, but law and due process will be
meticulously observed. This quote opens a perspective that as our society understands our
neighbors' Krystin et al. (2021) explain that business laws dictate a standard of conduct that
represents going beyond doing the legally right things to acting morally right. Christian morality
and law are not needed, but laws are needed to enforce a level playing field among society as our
society creates different factions. Laws are applied to set the standard through society for what is
acceptable and correct to what is illegal and wrong. Colossians 3:23 states that whatever you do,
work heartily for the Lord and not for men (King James Bible, 2017). Ethics in business is more
than following the law as laws can change, establishing a code of conduct developed through a
culture of religious beliefs, philosophies and even the unique requirements of specific
professions.
Conclusion
Hill (2018) states that business ethics from the Christian standpoint does not turn on or
off depending on where we are in life. The Christian principles should be applied to the rich,
poor, employed or unemployed. The individual's morality does not have a time limit on our days
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but should be applied all day, every day. The debate about political obligation concerns whether
and why there is a duty to obey the law because it is the law. Pascal (2021) argues that there are
cases where morality requires us to do what the law says but for reasons that are largely
independent of the law. Many corporations diligently integrate ethical analysis into defining their
corporate culture to social responsibility and return. There is a legal framework to guide these
decisions, but the law and ethics are not the same. The law represents the bare minimum as an
ethical framework. It is essential to distinguish between mandates and choices that match the
Christian ethics of how a business operates to gain profit and quality of products for the
consumer.
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References
Hill, A., 2018. Just business. 3rd ed. Downers Grove: IVP Academic.
King James Bible. (2017). King James Bible Online.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org (Original work published 1769)
Krystin, Z., Héliot YingFei, & Le, G. A. (2021). Analyzing Leadership Attributes in Faith-Based
Organizations: Idealism Versus Reality: JBE. Journal of Business Ethics, 170(4), 743-
757. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04358-7
Pascal, A. (2021). Business and human rights, from theory to practice and law to morality:
Taking a philosophical look at the proposed UN treaty. Philosophy of Management,
20(2), 167-200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-020-00150-0
Young, C. (2019) Putting the law in its place: Business ethics and the assumption that illegal
implies unethical. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(1), 35-51.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3904-4
