– Legal versus Ethical, Permissible versus Proper — There’s a big difference between what you have right to do and what is right to do. – Does the concept of business ethics justify or
Three Sources of Moral Obligations: The Root of Business Ethics
Updated December 13, 2017 Duty: The Root of Ethics A duty is an obligation to act in a certain way. Though duties arise from various sources, all duties have a moral dimension. Duties create obligations and expectations. Companies, for example, have many duties including an obligation to treat customers and employees fairly, to assure that their products and services are …
“Ought” Versus “Is” Ethics
Many debates about ethical issues become bogged down in a fundamental confusion caused by two very different ways in which the term ethics is used. In most cases, ethics refers to notions of moral obligation, ideas and beliefs about what people should do — the “ought.” Often, however, the term is used simply to describe what certain people or cultures …
12 Ethical Principles for Business Executives
Ethical values, translated into active language establishing standards or rules describing the kind of behavior an ethical person should and should not engage in, are ethical principles. The following list
Obeying the Law Is Not Always Enough
A common source of ethical insensitivity is a legalistic attitude toward ethics that says that if an action is legal or within some set of “rules,” then it’s acceptable and therefore ethical. The prevalence of this notion explains why so many people accused of wrongdoing hide behind technical interpretations of the law. They boast that they were not indicted or …
Citizenship
Orlando and his three friends went on a camping/fishing trip. When they reached the camp site they were unpleasantly surprised at how it had been left by the previous campers. Beer cans and other trash were all around. They spent almost three hours cleaning it up. The morning of their scheduled departure day another camper in the area told them …
Avoiding Unfair Conduct
One of the problems with interpreting the concepts of fairness and justice is that so many factors can go into the notion of a fair judgment. There is rarely one single result dictated by ethical analysis. Consequently, we often do not know what is truly fair. We do, however, often know what is unfair, and our first obligation is to …