INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Utility Rights Duties Justice Fairness Care

Moral Theories
The Utilitarian Theory The Theory of Rights and Duties Theory of Justice The Ethics of Care

The Utilitarian Theory

The utilitarian theory is broadly based on the view that any action or policy should be evaluated on the basis of benefits and costs it will impose on the society. The basic approach of this theory is that plans, programmers and actions of any organization should be chosen to produce the greatest net benefits for the largest number of people associated with the business which includes the society. To determine net benefits, all the costs and benefits (or damages) be it financial or otherwise should be taken into account.

The Theory of Rights and Duties

The theory of rights and duties holds that all people have some basic rights, concerned with the power of an individual to choose, pursue and protect his or her interests, and all such rights are associated with correlated duties. When these rights arise from legal provision or social convention, they become moral rights. If a company prohibits or denies such rights to its employees, it may be said to be unfair to its employees and its action would not be adjudged moral.

The Theory of Justice

The theory of justice revolves around the fundamental principles to guarantee a just and morally acceptable decision. It implies that the actions are guided by fairness, equity and impartiality.

The Ethics of Care

The ethics of care refers to necessity of showing extra care and consideration to protect someone else from the adverse effect of ones choice that can make someone vulnerable in a particular situation. Ethics of care necessitates examining contextual details of the situation in order to safeguard and promote specific interests of those involved because they are interdependent for accomplishing their specific interests as long as the interests are moral and legal.

UTILITARIAN APPROACH TO ETHICS

Those aspects of the deal or action that help in judging its morality and rightness from the ethical standpoint: 1. To find or determine the alternatives available to the doer of an action of a given situation. 2. To estimate direct and indirect benefits and costs of the deal or action for each alternative, and examine how it benefits or affects each person concerned in the shortterm as well as long-term. 3. To choose a particular alternative which produces the greatest benefits and utility to the maximum number of people (affected by the action), and is also morally and ethically appropriate as per the rules of moral reasoning.

Limitations of Utilitarianism
The Utilitarian approach is difficult to apply when dealing with values that are difficult to measure (or estimate) in order to determine the maximum benefits to all affected persons. This approach seems inadequate while handling situations that involve rights and justice.

Rule-Utilitarian Approach
Rule-utilitarian prescribes that an action should be judged in both contexts maximising utility and correct moral rules and not in isolation of each other. The qualitative aspects of rule-utilitarian principle are: An action is right from an ethical point of view if and only if the action would be required by those moral rules that are correct; and A moral rule is correct if and only if the sum total of utilities produced, when everyone were to follow that rule, is greater than the sum total of utilities produced by following some alternative rule.

Rule-utilitarianism modifies the correctness of decisions over utilitarianism.

Rights
Rights are of two types, legal and moral. Legal Rights are conveyed to a person by the statue of law or the constitution of the nation. Legal rights are limited by the jurisdiction within which a person or a business operates. Moral Rights devolve from social norms and moral standards, and are independent of any legal system. Moral rights are also called human rights.

Distinct features of Moral Rights

Moral rights are closely interlinked with duties. Moral rights are equally and equitably applied between the concerned parties. Moral rights may be used to justify ones action or for invoking the protection or help of others.

Rights can be invoked or revoked under different situations

Rights attained by the absence of law or prohibition. Rights that accrue from employment, authorisation or empowerment to do something either to secure the interest of others or the interest of self or society. Rights that descend by default. Rights that devolve from moral standards and social norms.

Duties
Duty is either contractual obligation or mutually understood obligation. However, obligations for duty cannot force an employee to do any immoral or unethical job.

Contractual Rights and Duties- Distinct Characteristics

Contractual rights and correlative duties are not universal. Contractual rights and correlative duties can arise only when there is a contract or agreement or transaction between particular parties with the provision of considerations and benefits. Contractual rights and duties can be imposed only if the performances involved are a part of the publicly recognised systems or laws.

ETHICAL RULES FOR CONTRACTS AND CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS

Both parties in a contract must have clear understanding and full knowledge of the nature of the agreement they are entering into; Neither party to the contract shall intentionally misrepresent the facts of the contractual situation to the other party; Neither party to the contract must be forced to enter the contract under duress or coercion or deceit; and The contract must not bind the parties to any immoral or illegal act.

Kants principle
If something is moral to me, it must be morally right for others too.
Everyone is of equal value and has equal freedom. Kants principle plays a dominant role in safeguarding ethics in the contractual dealings of business operations, and has particularly benefitted workers or employees in industries and business houses.

Justice
Distributive Justice Retributive Justice Compensatory Justice

Distributive Justice
Distributive justice says that equals should be treated equally and unequal should be treated unequally, and there should be consistency in the treatment. Distributive justice is commonly called for in business in areas like employee gradation and promotion, wage policy, eligibility for different types of perks, dealers commission, dividend distribution, etc. with a view to ensuring equality, uniformity and consistency in operations.

Retributive Justice
Retributive justice demands that a just action should be taken either as penalty or reward in a manner that deserves the cause for which the penalty or reward is being meted out. It generally deals, in practice, with the conditions under which it is just to punish a person for a wrongdoing.

Compensatory Justice
Compensatory justice is that which deals with the justice of restoration for being wrongfully harmed by somebody else. It demands that a person who has done wrong should restore or equally compensate for what has been lost or harmed.

Other types of Justice

Justice of equality states that every person working in a group should be given equal shares of the groups benefits and burdens. It applies to society, business and families. Justice based on contribution states that benefits and burdens should be distributed in proportion to what each individual contributes to the cause or action. Justice based on needs and abilities states that the burden of work should be distributed as per peoples ability, and benefits should be distributed as per peoples needs.

Cont
Justice of fairness is based on three basic principles (a) principle of equal liberty (b) principle of inequality, and (c) principle of fair and equal opportunity

The Ethics of Care

Each of us lives and exists in an environment of care and concern in the society, and we should preserve and nurture these environments and relationships; Each of us should exercise care for those with whom we are socially and otherwise related by attending to their needs, wellbeing and desires as seen from their own personal perspective, and by responding positively to the same so as to preserve the values of those relationships; Ethics of care is more than just following the moral principles discussed earlier; it involves attending and positively responding to the wellbeing and welfare of those persons with whom we share close and valuable relationships.

Steps in Moral Judgment

Ethics of Virtues
Ethics of virtue complement and add to utilitarianism, rights, justice and care by looking not at the actions people are required to perform, but at the character they are required to have. A moral virtue is an acquired quality that is praised and valued as a part of a persons character. It is indicative of good moral character. Some important ethics-related-virtues that make for a good individual or a successful manager are courage, prudence, wisdom, justice, fairness, temperance and intelligence.