本帖最后由 caseyzhao86 于 2011-11-17 12:57 编辑
Topic 1: Topic of Morality (Chapter 1) 1.0 The myth ofAmoral Business The myth of amoral business is saying that business andethics don’t mix
- It is centralized and based on Profit
- Amoral- it is not immoral, it does not consider about Moral
- The business world is like surviving in a Jungle, the ‘fittest’wins
- This implies that the businesses with the most profit wins
Soloman (Robert) thinks that Ethics is the centre ofbusiness, he contradict the “myth” approach because:
- Amoral/not consider about moral goes into making ethicaldecision making
- The amoral approach feeds suspicious of businesses to thepublic
- Often becomes the reason why public condemnation of business
Soloman also said there is a close relationship betweenethics and government regulations (laws)
- Laws/regulation is a natural response of the government andsociety
- Often when business scandals and tragedy happens, if theunethical actions were found out quicker and it was serious chastised bymanagers, then there is neither time or pressure for regulations
- However, if these actions were at the surroundings withethical neglect or silent, or worse, then the long term consequences may leadto the action of legal regulations
- Ethics is at the bottom line, ones simply reply: Regulationis the price to pay for unethical decision strategy.
2.0 Business Ethics Soloman said that the whole point of business ethics is todefine and defend the basic goal of prosperity, freedom, fairness andindividual dignity He approached the centre of business ethics are compliance, contribution and consequences
- Compliance: the need for compliance the rules, the law ofthe land, the principle of morality, the custom and expectations of communityand the principles of the company and generate concerns as fairness
- Contribution: the business can make to society, through thevalue and quality of the products and services; by ways the jobs are providedfor workers and managers, through the prosperity and usefulness of one’sactivity to the surrounding community
- Consequences: Consider about the consequences of businessactivity, both inside and outside the company; both intend and unintended’including one’s own company and industry
3.0 Business asPractice Business is a way of life, an established proven practicewhose prosperity and survival depends on the participation of the practitioner Business is like a practice, certain rules and expectationsapply to business
- Rules, restrictions apply to every transaction in business
- Once when you break the rule, you are no longer playing the “game”
Business is defined by its rules, many have to do with thefairness in dealing with employees, customers and government agents
- The notion of fairness in exchange is more centralized tobusiness, whether in terms of work and salary, product and price or publicservices and subsidies
Business as “practice”; the rules of fairness in exchangehave 3 major benefits:
- It ensures the market is open to everyone
- It protects the non-players, but those jobs, health andcareers are affected by it
- These rules have to do with serving the needs and wants ofthe public and community
4.0 Thinkingethically: the rules of the game What is ethics? It is a way of thinking. What is thinkingethically? It is thinking that compliance with the rules, whether implicit orexplicit; thinking of contribution that one can make as well as one’s own gain;thinking in terms of avoiding harmful consequences to others as well as one’sown. 8Golden rules: 1: consider others’ well-being, including the well being ofthe non-participants
- Making a contribution where it is reasonable to do so
- Avoid harmful consequences to others
- Do unto others as you would have done this onto you
- Does not ask you to sacrifise your own interest
- You must taking into account human effects beyond one’sbottom line and weigh one’s own gain against the losses of others
2: Think as a member of the business’s community, not as anisolated individual
- They are the conditions which makes the business possible
- Respect for contracts, paying one’s rent and debt, sellingdecent quality products at reasonable price
- Not only to one’s advantage
- Necessary for the very existence of the business community
3: Obey, but do not solely depend on the law
- Obey the law- the basic compliance for business
- Ethical thinking is not limited to legal obedience
- There are many actions that are immoral but legal
- Check the law, but do not stop there
4: Think of yourself, and your business, as part of thesociety
- Business is not a closed community
- It exists because it serves and does not harm the society
- Business is subject to the same ethical rules as everyoneelse because business men do not think themselves as separate to the society
5: obey moral rules
- Most obvious and unavoidable rule of ethical thinking
- The most important single sense of compliance
- No excuse for ignorance/ no unexcused exception
- Heart of ethics, no ethics, no business
6: Think objectively
- We act from our own interest and from our own perspective
- What is right is different whether it is from your owninterest
- We have to distinguish the difference and think from others’perspectives for a moment
7: Ask the question: what sort of people would do such athing?
- Ethics is not just the obedience to rules
- It still concerns for your own personal character
- Your reputation and good name
- More importantly, how do you feel about yourself
8: Respect the customers of others, but not at the expenseof your own ethics
- Conflicts between two ethics system
- Should follow the customs and ethics of the community
- Obey one’s own moral principles takes priority
- Different moral rules in different culture
Ethics does not ask you to sacrificeyour own bottom-line, it is asking you to consider others and community, andsociety as a whole. It is essential for strategic planning; there is nothingethical about making money; but money is not the currency of ethical thinking.
Topic 2: Utilitarianism (Article)
- Ultilitairanism was established by Bentham and Mill in the late 1700s to early 1800s, it is seen as a dominent thought for the past 300 years
- Utilitarianism can be defined as the right action is the one that produces the greatest possible balance of hapiness over unhappiness for all concerned(including all sentient beings, and future generation) when considering all alternatives
- it is the moral doctrine that we should always act to produce the greatest possible balance of good over bad for everyone affected by our actions
- Bentham said that the interest of the community are simply the sum of the interests of its members. For utilitarian principle, actions are right if they promote the greatest human welfare, wrong if they do not.
- 6 Points about utilitarianism:
- when deciding which action will produce the greatest happiness, we must consider unhappiness or pain as well as happiness, we should choose the action that brings fewer units of unhappiness if both actions are not leading to happiness
- Actions affect people in different degrees, utilitarian theory is not that each person votes on the basis of his/her pleasure or pain, with the majority rulling; rather, we add up the various pleasures and pain, however large or small, and go with the action that brings out the greatest net amount of happiness
- because utilitarians evaluate actions according to theire CONSEQUENCES, and actions produce different results in different circumstances, almost anything might, in principle, be morally right in some particular circumstances. Under certain circumstances, utilitarianism would require us to berak the promise.
- Utilitarians wish to maximize happiness in the long run, not immediately
- utilitairans acknowledge that we often don't know the future consequencs of our action will be, accordingly, we must act so that the expected or likely happiness is as great as possible.
- finally, when choosing amoung possible actions, utilitarianism does not reqire us to disregard our own pleasure, our own pleasure and pain enter into the calculus equally with the pleasures and pains of others
Topic 3: Kantian Ethics1.0 Kant's Non-consequences
- like egoism, utilitarianism theory reduces all morality to a concern with consequences
- Immanuel Kant provide an excellent example of a throughly non-consequences approach to ethics
- Kant believed that moral rules can, in principle, be known as a result of reason alone and are not beased on observation- Act from REASON, not consequences, moral reasoning is not based on factual knowledge and that reason by itself can reveal the basic principles of morality
- nothing, said Kant, is good in itself ecept a good WILL, the action's goodness depends on the will that makes use of them
- By will, Kant means the uniquely human capacity to act from principle
- the notion of good will is the concept of DUTY: only when we act from duty, does our action have moral worth
- when we act only out of feelings, inclination, or self-interest, our actions-although they may be otherwise identical with ones that spring from the sense of duty - have no true moral worth
- According to Kant, if you do not will the action from a sense of duty, to be fair and honest, your action lacks moral worth
- Actions have true moral worth only when they spring from recognition of duty and a choice to discharge it
- Kant formulated the CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES to guide our duty
2.0 Categorical Imperatives
- Kant believes that reason alone can yield a moral law, an absolute moral truth must be logically consistent, free from internal contradiction
- everyone has to follow the categorical imperatives, there is NO EXCEPTION
- Kant believeds that there is just one command (imperative) that is categorical- it is necessarily to bind all rational agents, regardless of any other considerations, it is derived all commands of DUTY, we should act in a way that we can will the maxim of our action to become a universal law, an action is morally right if only if we can will it to become a universal law of conduct
- MAXIM- it is the subjective principle of an action, the principle that peaople in effect formulate in determining their conduct, the morality of any maxim depends on whether we can logically will it to become a universal law
- moral rules prescribe CATEGORICALLY, not hypothetically, a hypothetical prescription tell us what to do if we desire a particular outcome
- necessarily binding on everyone, regarless his/her specific goals or desires, regardless of consequences
- A categorical imperative takes the form of DO this or DON'T DO THAT- there is no IF, AND or BUT
3.0 The two formations of Categorical Imperatives
- 1st formatin- universal acceptability:
- it is the sense of duty that we obey comes from within, it is an expression of our own higher selves.
- If the moral law is valid for you, it must be valid for all other rational beings
- The test of the morality of a rult, then, it not whether people in fact accept it but whether all rational beings thinking impartically and rationally would accept it regardless of whether they are the doers or the receivers of the actions
- In other words, will all rational beings think rationally except the doers and receivers
- 2nd Formation - Humanity as an End, Never as a Merely mean
- Rational creatures should alwasys treat other rational beings as ends in themselves and never as only means to ends
- we must respect others and in ourselfs.
TOPIC 4 - VIRTUE ETHICS- The consequences ehtories of utilitarianism and egonism are founded upon the quality of outcome, or consequences, whereas the non-consequences theoritical approach of Kant gives primacy too duty and motivation.
- Virtue ethics is the approach that is based up on the belief tha tthe most important thing in ethics and social relationships is not necessary the actions that are taken but, rather, in the quality of the person who undertake the action
- Utilitarianism - consideration of outcome/consequences
- Kant- duties that command specific actions
- Virtue- Based on the person's virtue/vice
- virtues are attitudes, dispositions, or character traits that enable us to be and to act in ways that enable us to persue or human potential for moral excellent
- How does a person develop virtures? Virtues are developed through learning and through practice. At the heart of the virtue approach to ethics is the idea of "community". A persons's character traits are not developed in isolation, but within and by the communities to which he or she belongs, including family, church, school, and other private or public associations.
- Virtue ethics emphasizes the VIRTUES, OR MORAL CHARACTER.
- A Utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximise well-being
- A deontologist will focus on the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance within a moral rule such as Do onto others as you would be done by
- A virtue ethicist will stress that the fact helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.
- Character is, a state of being, is about doing, character traits are stable, fixed and reliable dispositions
- A person with a certain character then, can be relied upon to act consistently over a time
- Moral character develops over a long period of time.
- Through moral education and development, we learn virtue, it relies on the availability of good ROLE MODELS , the virtuous agent act as a role model for what is good and the student follow his example, the sutdent of virtue must develop the right habits, so that he tends to perform virtuous acts. therefore, the role model 's action must be RELIABLE
- The virtuous person needs PHRONESIS or PRACTICAL WISDOM ability to be virtuous in any context:
- practical wisdom means the pratically wise, those who understand what is truly worthwhile, turly important, and thereby truly advantageous in life, who know, in short, how to live well
- Eudaimonia, is Hapiness, or flourishing, living a life accordance with virtue is necessary for eudaimonia
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发表于 2011-11-8 20:46:22
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