Business Ethics

1. Business Ethics Week 3

2. Article on:You See, the Ends Don’t Justify the Means: Visual Imagery and Moral Judgment • Visual imagery and Moral judgement– based on 3 experiments. • Individuals with more visual cognitive styles made more deontological judgments • Cognitive theory to explain human behavior by understanding the thought processes. The assumption is that humans are logical beings that make the choices that make the most sense to them • Visual interference, relative to verbal interference and no interference, decreases deontological judgment. • These effects are due to people’s tendency to visualize the harmful means (sacrificing one person) more than the beneficial end (saving others)

3. Theories of Economic JusticeChapter 2 • Marxian Liberalism • Belief that people have a natural right to liberty • A right to be free of unwanted coercion • Marxian belief that private property is coercive • John Rawl – Difference principle • Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all • Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are reducing the inequalities to the minimum DISCUSSION: Any other views

4. The Corporation as an IndividualChapter 3 • Corporation being morally responsible for what it does • “Corporate veil” • Limited liability concept; absolves directors, officers and stockholders from personal liability • Government policy is towards ethics • Direct activity of the corporation towards a common good

5. The Corporation as a Community- Stakeholder Theory • Primary stakeholders • Owners, customers, employees and suppliers • Weigh more heavily in the decision making process • Secondary stakeholders • All other interested groups • Competitors, government and the general public • Stockholder theory • Management expected to do everything in the interests of stockholders • Maximize Shareholder wealth concept • fiduciary responsibility on directors and management • DISCUSSION • Alternatives • Stakeholder theory • Corporation as a morally responsible individual

6. Can a corporation have a conscience? • Individuals can exercise their right as citizens • But for a Corporation • Economic view in a social arena? • Leads to difference in: • What a corporation should do and what it can do • A corporation must have a conscience • Executives must be both philosophical and practical

7. Defining the Responsibility of persons • Being accountable • Rule following • http://web.mit.edu/holton/www/courses/language/rule.following.pdf • Individuals are subject to externally imposed norms with some social role that people have to play • What is socially expected • Decision making • Persons independent thought process that justify an attitude of trust with whom there is interaction • Key characteristic of moral responsibility • Intellectual and emotional process leading to moral reasoning

8. 2 traits of MoralityFrankena – Page 58 • Rationality • Lack of impulsiveness, care in considering alternatives etc. • Respect • A special awareness and concern for the effects of one’s decisions and policies on others • A person acts responsibly if they gather information on the impact of their decisions on others. • Same applies to Corporate responsibility • Monitoring employment practices, effects of one’s production processes on the environment and humans, are considered to show the same kind of morality/ respect as individuals • Differences in corporations compared to persons • Some have inbuilt features into their management incentive systems • How applicable should this be?

9. Evaluating the idea of Moral Projection • Where is the concept of moral responsibility useful? • Guiding corporate policy • What are proper Business practices? • Chapter 4 • Competition and the Practice of Business • Fair competition: a set of community originated professional practices, consistent with morality. • Eg: as in Virtue ethics