Bus Ethics Corp Resp Essay
By Jodi Brown March 18, 2014 Legal Environment of Business
Imagine a world without conscious. A world full of lawlessness governed by greed and disrespect. Where anything goes and nothing has value. This would be our world without ethics. It is said that “true character is defined by what you do when no one is looking.”
Ethics is grounded in values and virtue and how we translate into our lives determines our behavior and our ethical beliefs shape our world. Ethical principles evolve over time and change with our focus the ethical concepts we struggle with today become our laws in the future. Any discussion regarding business ethics should begin will the definition of ethics. The dictionary defines ethics as “that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” (Ethics. (n.d.).) The theory of ethics has been discussed by philosophers for thousands of years and many consider it to be the “science of conduct”. (D. Gebler) This science asks about the reasoning behind our ethical beliefs. There are both informal and formal methods of ethical reasoning. Informal reasoning is based on upbringing, fear of punishment and promise of rewards that can dictate our behavior. Beyond the informal methods of ethical reasoning comes the formal methods which include Virtue ethics, Teleology and Deontology. Virtue ethics came about through the writings of Aristotle and is found in his Nichomachean Ethics written in 350 B.C. The premise for his writing is that individuals only become virtuous by living virtuous lives and he identified characteristics which dictate virtuousness. They are courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, pride, calmness, friendliness, wittiness, shame, justice, courage and honor. (Bixby, Beck-Dudley) Within this reasoning justice is considered the most important virtue and is
Imagine a world without conscious. A world full of lawlessness governed by greed and disrespect. Where anything goes and nothing has value. This would be our world without ethics. It is said that “true character is defined by what you do when no one is looking.”
Ethics is grounded in values and virtue and how we translate into our lives determines our behavior and our ethical beliefs shape our world. Ethical principles evolve over time and change with our focus the ethical concepts we struggle with today become our laws in the future. Any discussion regarding business ethics should begin will the definition of ethics. The dictionary defines ethics as “that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” (Ethics. (n.d.).) The theory of ethics has been discussed by philosophers for thousands of years and many consider it to be the “science of conduct”. (D. Gebler) This science asks about the reasoning behind our ethical beliefs. There are both informal and formal methods of ethical reasoning. Informal reasoning is based on upbringing, fear of punishment and promise of rewards that can dictate our behavior. Beyond the informal methods of ethical reasoning comes the formal methods which include Virtue ethics, Teleology and Deontology. Virtue ethics came about through the writings of Aristotle and is found in his Nichomachean Ethics written in 350 B.C. The premise for his writing is that individuals only become virtuous by living virtuous lives and he identified characteristics which dictate virtuousness. They are courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, pride, calmness, friendliness, wittiness, shame, justice, courage and honor. (Bixby, Beck-Dudley) Within this reasoning justice is considered the most important virtue and is
References: ethics. (n.d.). The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Retrieved April 13, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: Retrieved from website: http://managementhelp.org/businessethics/index.htm Bixby, Beck-Dudley, Cihon, & Park, (2011) The Legal Environment of Business, Upper Saddle http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/law J Hart, (1997) Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, Ebookily Retrieved April 13, 2014, from website: http://ebookily.org/pdf/chapter-3-social-responsibility-business-ethics-and-15825882.html