Business Ethics
2
Lucjan Klimsza
Business Ethics
Introduction to the Ethics of Values
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the Ethics of Values
This text was translated from the Czech language by Slavomíra Klimszová.
1st edition
© 2014 Lucjan Klimsza & bookboon.com
ISBN XXXXXXXXXX
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
Ethics of Values
4
Contents
Contents
Part One Theoretical studies 9
1 Introduction 10
1.1 The basic question of ethics 10
1.2 Why we have to study ethics 11
1.3 Other reasons for studying ethics 12
1.4 The reasons for studying business ethics 12
2 Introduction to Ethics 13
2.1 The meaning of the word ‘ethics’ 13
2.2 Ethics in the ethos 16
2.3 Ethics in morality 17
2.4 Autonomous, heteronomous, theonomous 18
2.5 Definition of ethics 19
2.6 Goals of ethical study 21
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
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Contents
3 Ethics by Recognition Aims 25
3.1 System classification of ethics 25
3.2 Descriptive ethics 25
3.3 Normative ethics 27
3.4 Meta-ethics 29
3.5 Graphical depiction 30
4 Normative Ethics Schools 31
4.1 Ancient hedonism 31
4.2 Utilitarianism 32
4.3 Empiristic ethics 33
4.4 Ethics by norms or principles 36
4.5 Casuistic ethics 37
4.6 Situation ethics 38
4.7 Ethics of reckoning 41
4.8 Deontological ethics 42
4.9 Ethics of responsibility 44
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
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Contents
5 Ethics by Orientation 46
5.1 Applied ethics 46
5.2 Anthropological orientation 47
6 Business Ethics 52
6.1 Values in business ethics 52
6.2 Freedom 53
6.3 Justice 56
6.4 Responsibility 57
6.5 Trust 60
6.6 Progress 61
6.7 Prosperity 62
6.8 Sustainability 64
3.9 Rationality 64
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
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Contents
Part Two Case studies 65
7 Introduction to Case studies 66
7.1 Case study 66
7.2 Definition of the case study for ethics 69
8 Case: Students‘ thesis 71
8.1 Introduction 71
8.2 Case analysis from different schools of normative ethics perspective 72
9 Case: Loyal employee 79
9.1 Introduction 79
9.2 Analysis of the case from the perspective of different schools of normative ethics 79
10 Literature 87
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I dedicate this book to my beloved daughters Emily and Rachel.
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Part One
Theoretical studies
Motto of the practical part of the book.
“Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.”
– G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften.
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
Ethics of Values
10
Introduction
1 Introduction
The intention of this book is to serve as a compendium which contributes to a better understanding of
major ethical terminology and basic ethical systems orientated towards business ethics. Business ethics
are part of applied ethics. It means that this book will focus on ethical questions only. Topics like social
esponsibility or corporate responsibility will be considered only partially as a moral phenomena. We
do not want to confuse these topics with ethics. We would like to analyze these phenomena from the
perspective of ethics.
This compendium should help those who lead their own career or lead other people’s career from the
ethical perspective. We will talk about business life in the light of the ethics of values. This book is
divided into two parts. The first part is theoretical in which survey of main ethical terminology and the
most important ethical systems are presented. The second part of this book focuses on applied ethics in
which a few cases are analyzed from the position of normative ethics.
1.1 The basic question of ethics
We are searching for answers good enough to be declared the most fundamental for every human being,
questions that nobody can escape from because their future depends on the answers. This is not ethics
in the purely academic sense of the word, but ethics that everyone who enquirers into questions of their
own existence will have an urgent need to be interested in. It needs to be added that searching for those
answers becomes very difficult without a certain level of academic erudition.
It was Immanuel Kant (Kant: Critique of Pure Reason) who paved the way here by formulating four
asic questions that each man has to face:
- What can I know?
- What should I do?
- What can I believe in?
- Who is man? Or, who am I?
These four fundamental questions serve as a foundation for ethics. Although each is bound to a different
discipline, they can be considered, in the
oadest sense, the basic starting points of ethics.
Example: Children must answer important Kant’s question: ”What should I do?” when they decide
to choose a secondary school and consider how much they must prepare for exams if they choose a
particular school. The truth is that their family helps them, especially their parents, but they must make
this decision and also do something more by studying hard.
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
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11
Introduction
The major ethical question: What should I do?
This is the fundamental ethical question, but we still don’t know how important it is to study ethics. We
have to give the right answer to the question “what should I do?”, or the question of why we do what
we do. So we look for a justification for our decisions.
The major ethical function: Justification of everyday decisions.
1.2 Why we have to study ethics
There was once a man looking for a colour. The colour was to be used in a painting and the subject of
the painting was a supper. For a very long time, the man did nothing else but search for the right shade
of blue. He wrote a note about the conditions for the right shade of blue (Richter XXXXXXXXXXWhen he finally
found it, he finished his incredible masterpiece. You can ask why he did not simply pick from among the
myriad of blue shades available or those that were easier to reach. Why lose so much time looking for
the right blue? The answer can be found in his artistic legacy, The Last Supper. The man was Leonardo
Da Vinci (Bandello, Matteo in Boorstin 1996).
A human being is not eternally encased in this world that, as it seems, can only be his temporary home.
Once gone, the only things left are his thoughts, deeds and his hands’ creations, from musical masterpieces,
through wonderful poems, to sculptures and paintings with values that grow with time. If only those
pieces of art witnessed the greatness of the spirit, it would be easy to call life meaningful and good.
However, the same goes for the dark side of the human soul. Holocaust, wars, genocides and co
uption
startle mankind with the same vigour as all things spiritual elevate it to the heights. All values we create
tend to form the impression of being virtuous, but time proves them wrong. An important question
arises from that dichotomy of mankind and its urgency cannot be trivialised. Therefore, the question
of ethics, as prominent twentieth – century moralist – Emmanuel Levinas puts it, is the question that
stands at the forefront of human thinking (Levinas 1994).
Example: The history of the twentieth century teaches us that every decision by humankind has
consequences, with an impact on people.
Now, we know the first and fundamental ethical question: What should I do? Also, we know that every
decision leads us to consequences. Everybody knows it. So is there really just one important reason to
study ethics? We think there are more reasons why we must do so.
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Business Ethics: Introduction to the
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Introduction
1.3 Other reasons for studying ethics
Robert Solomon identifies four reasons for studying ethics (Solomon 1984, pp. 2–3). He says that:
- we live in a continually changing world;
- we live in a pluralistic world, with pluralistic cultures and pluralistic societies that have
different values, rules and beliefs;
- our ethics involve choice,
- ethical values are often in conflict with each other.
This fourth reason can be summarised as having four causes:
- a changing world;
- a pluralistic world;
- the possibility of choices,
- ethical dilemmas.
Now we can define the major goals in the study of business ethics.
1.4 The reasons for studying business ethics
Many books that deal with business ethics indicate that it is important to study ethics because of huge
co
uption scandals or defraudation. Many books specify ethical issues as a major priority for the twenty-
first century, but we identify the reasons for studying business ethics in a few steps:
- because it forms part of applied ethics;
- as I am a human being, it is not i
elevant to how I live;
- I need to know what I must do in my professional life;
- my professional