Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DeGeorge
Chapter Overview
Business is an important part of contemporary society and it involves all of us, in one way or another. Business is not something separate from society or imposed on itit is an integral part of society. Morality consists of rules of human behavior and specifies that certain actions are wrong or immoral and that others are right or moral. Because business activity is human activity, it can be evaluated from the moral point of view, just as any other human activity can be so evaluated.
Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.
It is neither defense of the status quo nor its radical change. Rather, it should serve to remedy those aspects or structures that need to change, and it should protect those that are moral.
Expresses the ambivalence of many toward business and a popular, widespread view of American Business. The myth has several variations:
Business is amoral insofar as ethical
considerations are inappropriate to business, because business is business. Ethical language is simply not the language of business Many businesses act unethically not because of a desire to do evil, but simply because they want to make a profit and therefore disregard some of the consequences of their actions.
Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.
Morality consists of rules of human behavior and specifies that certain actions are wrong or immoral and that others are right or moral. Because most businesses value their reputations, we do not really live in a dog-eat-dog business world. It is because the ordinary person does not need to be told that lying and stealing are wrong that they form part of the background of business. The limits set by society on business are often moral, but they are also frequently written into law. The retreat to law as the sole norm by which to guide business is in part a reflection of the fact that most managers do not know how to handle many moral issues in business.
Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.
ethics.
General Ethics
Descriptive ethics is closely related to anthropology, sociology, and psychology Normative ethics builds on the whole that descriptive ethics provides and attempts to supply and justify a coherent moral system based on it Metaethics is the study of normative ethics, and, to some extent, both normative and descriptive ethics involve some metaethical activity
Special Ethics
Causitry is the art of solving difficult moral problems, cases, or dilemmas through careful application of moral principles. Applying general ethics to specialized fields yields business ethics, medical ethics, engineering ethics, professional ethics, etc.
5.
Fourth, those in business ethics are sometimes led by embedded problems to go beyond the field of ethics into other areas of philosophy and into other domains of knowledge, such as economics and organization theory. The fifth activity in which business ethics is typically involved is describing morally praiseworthy and exemplary actions, of either individuals in business or particular firms.
Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.