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statements about how people ought to behave or ought not to behave.
Ethics deals with matters that are of serious consequence to human beings. Ethics affects human welfare and fulfillment in significant ways. People will be positively or negatively affected by moral decisions. Ethics, therefore, is concerned with conduct that can benefit or harm human beings.
Morals fundamentally convey norms to human life. Moral standards enable resolution of disputes by providing accept- able justification for actions. If one bases a decision on a moral rule, and if the moral rule is based on and derived from an agreed-upon ethical principle, the decision should be publicly acceptable. Ethics then can identify certain behaviors as better or worse than others by endowing these determinations with normative moral force. Ethics and morality thus perform a directive role, encouraging or discouraging ways of conduct, living, thinking, and choosing. People can then pursue their conception of the good life in such a way as not to conflict with the ways of life of others. There obviously must be constraints on the manners in which people pursue their chosen ways of life; morality emerges as an important delimiting factor.
Although ethical theories and ethical principles are pro- pounded principally by moral philosophers, morality is not an invention of philosophers; rather, it is part of the make-up and outlook of almost all people. A moral judgment, however, is a particularly important type of deliberation. It is a reasoned ethical conclusion directed toward what one ought or ought not to do. Morality, therefore, properly and accurately should be understood as a development and application of ethical theories and principles.
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while others may value loyalty to a higher degree in certain situations. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that theoretically, logically, and rationally determines right from wrong, good from bad, moral from immoral, and just from unjust actions, conducts, and behavior. Some people define ethics simply as doing what you say you would do or “walking the talk.”
Overall, ethics establishes the rules and standards that govern the moral behavior of individuals and groups. It also distin- guishes between right and wrong conducts. It involves honest consideration to underlying motive, to possible potential harm, and to congruency with established values and rules. Applied ethics refers to moral conclusions based on rules, standards, code of ethics, and models that help guide decisions. There are many subdivisions in the field of ethics and some of the common ones are descriptive, normative, and comparative ethics. Business ethic, more specifically, deals with the creation and application of moral standards in the business environment. Morals are judgments, standards, and rules of good conduct in the society.
They guide people toward permissible behavior with regard to basic values. Consider the following dilemma and how the terms values, ethics, and morals actually apply here.
A thief, named Zar, guarantees that you will receive the agreed-upon confidential information from your competitor in 5 days. Zar is professing a value—he will deal with you hon- estly because you as the customer are very important to his/
her business. When Zar has delivered the proper documents within the agreed-upon time (5 days), one can say that Zar has behaved ethically because he was consistent with his/her professed values. The following year you ask Dar, who is a competitor to Zar, and he makes the same promise as Zar by professing the same values, to get the same information from your competitor for this year. Five days later, Dar only deliv- ers part of the information which is not totally accurate, and in the meantime Dar is blackmailing you for more money. If Dar does not get more money then he will be going to the authori- ties and to the competitor to report this business dealing.
Now, one can say that Dar has behaved unethically because his actions were not consistent with his professed values. Finally, one can conclude that all three parties involved in stealing inside information have acted immorally as judged by major- ity of the population. Overall, values are professed statements of one’s beliefs, ethics is delivering on one’s professed values;
and morals are actions of good conduct as judged by the soci- ety that enhance the welfare of human beings.
Understanding values, ethics, and morals while using ethi- cal principles, each organization can form a framework for
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effective decision-making with formalized strategies. The will- ingness to add ethical principles to the decision-making struc- ture indicates a desire to promote fairness, as well as prevent potential moral problems from occurring.
Corporate ethics programs initiated and updated by human resource managers and professionals are part of organizational life; and organizations can use such sessions to further discuss the meaning of values, ethics, and morals in the context of their businesses. Organizational codes of ethics should protect indi- viduals and address the moral values of the firm in the decision- making processes. Corporate codes of ethics are not merely some manuals for how-to-solve problems. They are tools which can empower everyone in the organization to say, “I am sorry that is against our policy, or that would violate our company’s code of ethics.” This ethical foundation also will increase per- sonal commitment of employees to their companies because people do take pride in the integrity of their corporate culture.
Ethics and the law
Ethics attempts to resolve difficult and contentious moral issues by methods that resemble scientific methods. Ethics is based on theories of moral philosophy. Ethical principles and moral rules are used to establish and explain particular deci- sions. Principles and rules can be tested by appealing to moral determination that certain actions are right or wrong.
The scientific world, however, is amenable to observation, testing, and resolution in a way that the moral world is not.
Ethics is not accurate in the same sense that a scientific theory must be accurate if it is to be accepted. An ethical theory is not necessarily, or even usually, confirmed or disproved by clear and indisputable evidence.
Consequently, many moral questions do not have clearly demonstrable “correct” answers; and many moral issues are highly controversial. Competent moral philosophers may dis- agree even about fundamental moral matters. Yet, if ethics is not scientific, how does one ultimately resolve moral disputes?
Are there any agreed-upon, objective ethical truths to be discov- ered? If there are objective ethical principles, can they be used to formulate moral rules governing conduct? Some moral phi- losophers, such as Plato, emphasized the scientific objectivity of moral judgments. They posited a “moral order” in the world waiting to be discovered. The faculty of reason will disclose immutable “moral facts” that will enable one to discover what is good and bad and thus to regulate one’s life accordingly.
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For most moral philosophers, however, it is sufficient that an ethical theory, and the set of more or less general principles that compose it, is acceptable for the most part, on the whole, and in actual experience.
Since there is little in ethics that is analogous to scientific meth- odology, nothing in ethics is known in a scientific sense. Ethics, therefore, has not made any definite “advances” in the sense of ascertainable and provable discoveries. One, for example, can say definitely that Aristotle’s commentary on astronomy is wrong; but one cannot say, in the same sense, that Aristotle’s ethical views are right or wrong. One advantage, however, to this lack of scientific ethical advancement is that an ancient treatise on ethics is not necessarily inferior to a modern one.
Ethics is not morally neutral. A moral philosopher is not con- tent to merely state the facts; he or she also attempts to obtain worth and value. Ethics asks not only what is the good, but also how one can be good. Ethics not only describes the world but also evaluates the world and represents it the way one wants it to be. Moral judgments are the core of ethical analysis.
Managers should be comfortable with scientific methods.
Gathering data, analyzing data, corroborating data, and arriv- ing at a conclusion are standard managerial practices. A man- ager should be more sure of himself or herself when making a provable factual statement.
Managers, however, may not be so comfortable with resolv- ing moral issues. While managers certainly recognize the necessity of confronting moral issues and making moral deter- minations, a manager may find it difficult to analyze ethically and to justify a moral decision. Most managers simply are not trained to conduct an ethical analysis and to argue about morality in a reasonable “scientific” manner.
Ethics vs. law
Law is the set of public, universal commands that are capa- ble of being complied with, generally accepted, and enforced by sanctions. Law describes the ways in which people are required to act in their relationships with others in an organ- ized society. One purpose of the law is to keep people’s ambi- tions, self-interest, and greed especially in a capitalistic society, in check and in moderation.
Positive law is the law of a people’s own making; it is the law laid down by legislative bodies, courts, and other gov- ernmental organs. Whenever any mention of “law” is made, the term customarily refers only to positive law, unless clearly
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stipulated otherwise. This is so because law also may mean
“natural” law. Consequently, there are two theories of ethics that claim that morality depends on law: positive law and a natural law theory.
Law must be declared publicly. It must be published and made accessible in advance to all so that people can know that they are bound. Trained professionals, however, may be neces- sary to interpret and explain law.
Law must treat equally those with similar characteristics who are similarly situated.
There is an aura of insistency and inevitability to law. It must define what one must do and forbear from doing. The law is not composed of expectations, suggestions, and petitions to act in a certain way. The law requires one to act in a certain way.
Most laws, however, are negative; that is, they require one not to act in a certain way.
Law must be accessible to the people who are to be bound by it. Laws are not legitimate if they neither can be found nor understood by people. Laws, moreover, are not legitimate if they do not clearly specify in advance what actions lie under the domain of those laws.
Law cannot be so incomprehensible that no one can obey it.
It also cannot be inconsistent. Legal requirements, for exam- ple, that contradict each other cannot be termed “law” because people obviously cannot obey both.
Law generally must be obeyed. It cannot be so contrary to dominant public opinion that virtually no one will either obey or enforce the law. Most members of a society must voluntar- ily obey the law.
Law consists of commands enforced by sanctions, political, physical, and economic, that the officials of the state are able to, and disposed to, inflict on those who fail to comply. The essence of law is coercion. The law also relies on persuasion, but ultimately on force.
The purpose of legal sanctions is to motivate compliance.
People must be made to understand that they will be compelled to obey the law or suffer some loss. If law is not enforced, or enforced so rarely that people forget about it, the law degener- ates into a mere “trap” for the unwary or unlucky.
As ethics is based predominantly on rationality, and excludes force, ethics relies on persuasion to “enforce” moral rules. The characteristic “sanctions” in a moral system encompass blame, loss of esteem, and disassociation, as well as first-person reac- tions such as guilt, self-reproach, and remorse.
Many business practices, for example, bribery, can be cast as either legal or moral questions, or both. Managers probably are
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more comfortable with such questions posed as legal issues, since managers have familiarity with, experience with, and access to the law, the legal system, and lawyers. The problem, of course, is how and when the manager decides whether it is best to formulate a question as a legal issue and turn it over to the legal department to decide or to formulate it as a moral issue and turn it over to the ethics department, perhaps, to decide.
Ethics and religion
A religious ethics theory defines morality in terms of God’s will. What is morally right is commanded by God; what is morally wrong is forbidden by God. Moral standards, there- fore, are the set of laws or commands sanctioned by God.
What ultimately makes an action right or wrong is its being commanded or forbidden by God. Religion once had, and still does in some spheres, the authority to regulate people’s affairs, including their business activities, in accordance with their spiritual welfare.
Atheists obviously would not accept a religious-based stand- ard for ethics. Questions about religious ethics are interesting and useful only if one believes in God; if not, any important moral issues must involve human beings.
A serious problem, even for the believer, is how to establish
“the” convincing truth. How can one claim to have a conduit to a divine being so that one can be an authoritative spokes- person for revealed truth and a definitive interpreter of scrip- ture? A religious theory of ethics is certainly a triumph of faith.
It takes the world on trust, but diminishes human thought and endeavor. Why should the faith of any being, even God, in and of itself make an act right? Are God’s commands to be regarded as arbitrary because God could have given different commands? If good is “good” or honesty is “right” because God commands it, then God could have commanded the opposite. There is, then, for God, no difference between right and wrong. Thus, it is no longer an accurate and significant statement to say that God is good; all one can say is that God is God and likes himself or herself the way he or she is, which then seems rather trivial.
A theologian would defend a religious ethics standard by declaring that God is good and that God desires worship and obedience since He or She is morally perfect. God’s decrees, moreover, are not arbitrary because they are inspired by God’s goodness. God’s will constitutes whatever moral qualities there are to an act.
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Does God, however, command what is good and right because it is good and right, or is an act good and right because God commands it? The problem with the theologian’s defense is that it implies a standard of goodness independent of God. That is, the defense makes sense only if one understands the con- cept of moral perfection before one relates it to God. There then must be some notion of goodness antecedent to God’s decrees that has led God to make these decrees rather than any others.
Socrates asserted that God wills an action because it is right. The standard of right and wrong, therefore, logically is independent of God. Goodness and rightness exist prior to God’s commands, and the goodness and rightness in and of themselves are the reasons for God’s commands. Yet, if goodness is good, and God merely recognizes this fact, the logical conclusion is that moral- ity does not depend on God, but rather on ethics.
Ethics is an autonomous discipline, depending solely on rea- son that can be studied, discussed, and applied without any reference to religious beliefs and without any reliance on reli- gious supports. The moral determinations that prevail are the ones with the best reasons on their side.
The Socratic Method
Socrates’ philosophy focused attention on the problems of human life as opposed to the speculations about the nature of the physical world that had been prevalent in Greek phi- losophy. Socrates stressed the importance of comprehending what it means to be a human being, how one should live in the world, and for what purpose.
In making the change from natural to moral philosophy, Socrates confronted a great deal of confusion in the moral thought of his time, particularly the wide variety of general terms used that purported to express moral notions. Socrates’
main contribution to philosophy was to “bring it down from the skies”; that is, to demand precise, workable definitions, and to enunciate a procedure for formulating such definitions.
Socrates believed it was extremely harmful for people to use continually a wide variety of very general terms, especially terms intending to describe moral ideas. Even more dangerous were the Sophists, who taught an extreme personal relativism.
Socrates deplored the Sophists’ declaration that moral terms, such as “justice,” had no basis in reality and that whatever any person thought was just was “just” for him or her. Yet, if one really needed a definition of “justice” the Sophists could supply one: “Justice is the will of the strong.” The lack of any
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fixed meaning, the inability of people to provide proper expla- nations, the individualistic, expedient decision-making, and the Sophists’ emphasis on rhetoric and persuasion engendered relativism, skepticism, and a great deal of confusion, particu- larly in the meanings attached to moral terms.
Perhaps the Sophists were right and the terms had no mean- ing; but if so, then people should not use them. Yet, if the terms do have permanent, objective meaning, then the people who do use them ought to be able to say what they mean. It is not only wrong but also quite unhelpful to discuss whether a per- son’s conduct was just or unjust, moral or immoral, or good or bad unless there is some agreement as to what justice, moral- ity, and goodness are. If there is no agreement, people are using the same words to mean different things. They then will be talking at cross purposes and their discussions will make no progress, either intellectually or morally. Only confusion, skepticism, chaos, and perhaps even conflict will ensue.
The Sophists maintained that knowledge was impossible;
they viewed life as a contest in which one must be prepared to win. Socrates held that knowledge was attainable; he viewed life as a positive, common search for knowledge, but one that could begin only if the confusing, misleading, and dangerous tendencies were eliminated and people understood the right way to achieve the goal. The Sophistic outlook was for Socrates not only intellectually incorrect but also morally harmful. He would make it his life work to combat such “Sophistry.” He would seek the clear meanings and shape them into defini- tions, principles, and rules, always for a moral purpose; and life would be better for knowing and acting by these definitions.
“Goodness is real; and reality is good,” declared Socrates.
The Socratic Method • • •
Socrates realized that many people have strong opinions on moral issues; but he also recognized the serious problem caused by the fact that most people are capable neither of ade- quately justifying their opinions nor of defining their essential terms. For Socrates, morality must be subject to a rigorous sci- entific method that would reveal ultimate knowledge and uni- versal truth.
Yet before this scientific philosophical inquiry can com- mence, one must question one’s own beliefs. Socrates consis- tently maintained that he knew nothing. The only way in which he was wiser than others was that he was conscious of his own ignorance, while other people were not.