Ethics Flashcards
Values:
Truth
Freedom
Integrity
Fairness
Generosity
Courage
Norms:
Honesty
Respect
Equality
Loyalty
Privacy
Beliefs
Liberty
Collectiveness
Sanctity
Spirituality
What are Terminal Values?
Ends/purposes we should strive for
What are Personal values
Peace of mind
What are Social values
World peace
What are Instrumental values
How one should live/behave
What are moral values?
Being honest
What are competence values?
Behave imaginatively
Examples of moral foundations:
(intuitive ethics <-> unique moralities)
1. Care <-> Harm
2. Fairness <-> Cheating
3. Loyalty <-> Betrayal
4. Authority <-> Subversion
5. Sanctity <-> Degradation
6. Liberty <-> Oppression
The principal agent theory
Principal is client and the agent is the service provider e.g:
- Employes vs employee
- Stockholder vs manager
- Consumer vs manager
- Society vs industry
(Non-) alignment within the principal agent theory
2 factors:
- Moral hazard: (of the principal) is the difference of interests between the principal and the agent
- Information asymmetry is an example of the inequal situation of principle and agent, ensure clear contracts, strict external supervision, reliable reporting, self regulation
Importance of trust:
- Incontrollable situations
- Agreements can’t seal all aspects
- Increase in gap between information and consumer society
- Decentralisation in companies
- Growing specialisation
Integrity:
o Moral management is not only about the role model
o Integrity management is essential to promote integer, moral behaviour, requires backbone
o Debate about integrity is a communal search for an applicable moral framework,
comparable to a judicial decision making
o Personal dimension
- Integrity is closely bound up with business ethics and
forms of social responsibility
- Moral management will be willing to give account for
their actions
- Moral self-worth means moral pride
Two types of reasoning in business ethics
Moral reasoning:
1. Can be along the lines of outcomes of your actions
2. The motivations for your acting
2 streams in ethics
- Consequentialism
Locates morality in the consequences of an act - Deontology
Locates morality in certain duties and rights
Theories of Consequentialism (Utilitarianism)
« Teleological ‘goal’ oriented
« Intended outcome based
Theories of non-consequentialism (Deontology)
« Deontological ‘source/duty’
« Principle based
Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
« The greatest happiness principle.
« The greatest good for the greatest number of people.
« Doing what is ‘right’ means doing what achieves that (pleasure over pain) for as many
people as possible.
« Cost-benefit analysis.
Egoism
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
« Individual desires or interests.
« Maximization of desires.
« Man is actor with limited knowledge and objectives.
Ethics of duties / Kantianism
Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Categorical imperatives/maxims
« Man always treated as an end, no means.
« ‘… the right has priority over the good’.
« A deed is morally right if the motive is just doing the right things for the right reasons.
Ethics of rights and justice
John Locke (1632-1704)
« Duty to respect ‘natural’ rights of men such as right to life, freedom & property.
« Human dignity is at the center.
What is an ethical dilemma?
A situation in which a difficult choice must be made between two courses of action, either of
which entails transgressing a moral principle.
Are situations where persons who are called ‘moral agents’ in ethics, are forced to choose
between two or more conflicting options, neither of them resolves the situation in a morally
acceptable manner
Conditions for moral dilemmas
- The person or agent of a moral action is obliged to decide about which course of action
is best. - There must be different courses of actions to choose from.
- No matter what course of action is taken some moral principles are always
compromised.
There is always a loss!
