Does Cheating in Golf Predict Cheating in Business?
Case 13 - Does cheating in golf predict cheating in business? 1)
This case reports one of the worst problems of the society during the last
decades - cheating. Nowadays you can find it anywhere, in business, in sports, everywhere if you can get an advantage of using it. This case describes a very interesting comparison between the ethical behaviour of business executives in a golf field and in their job. As everybody knows, golf works many times as a business sport, a golf field is a place where many deals are settled down, and so could be also the place to overtake your competitors seeking for a great business or to win some money from a bet at the same time. All of these reasons make those executives have the will to cheat and most of them admitted they did what makes us to think that maybe they also do it in their jobs, despite the fact that in this case they don’t admit it. Approaching to the ethical principles, utilitarianism, a teleological principle, asserts that “we should always act so as to produce the greatest ratio of good to evil for everyone”, or for other words we should take the action that represents the “greatest good for the greatest number”. However this theory has some weaknesses (as any theory) such as the fact that it ignores the means, it just focuses on the ends, so using the utilitarianism reasoning, the end justifies the means, and relating this with the case we could have the situation when if we cheat and it will represent the “greatest good for the greatest number” according to this principle there’s nothing that makes that action ethically incorrect. However, Kant’s Categorical Imperative, a deontological principle that focus essentially on duties, bases in 3 formulations: act only on rules (or maxims) that you would be willing to see everyone follow; each person has dignity and moral worth and should never be exploited or manipulated or merely used as a means to another end; and we do not need an external authority—be it God, the
This case reports one of the worst problems of the society during the last
decades - cheating. Nowadays you can find it anywhere, in business, in sports, everywhere if you can get an advantage of using it. This case describes a very interesting comparison between the ethical behaviour of business executives in a golf field and in their job. As everybody knows, golf works many times as a business sport, a golf field is a place where many deals are settled down, and so could be also the place to overtake your competitors seeking for a great business or to win some money from a bet at the same time. All of these reasons make those executives have the will to cheat and most of them admitted they did what makes us to think that maybe they also do it in their jobs, despite the fact that in this case they don’t admit it. Approaching to the ethical principles, utilitarianism, a teleological principle, asserts that “we should always act so as to produce the greatest ratio of good to evil for everyone”, or for other words we should take the action that represents the “greatest good for the greatest number”. However this theory has some weaknesses (as any theory) such as the fact that it ignores the means, it just focuses on the ends, so using the utilitarianism reasoning, the end justifies the means, and relating this with the case we could have the situation when if we cheat and it will represent the “greatest good for the greatest number” according to this principle there’s nothing that makes that action ethically incorrect. However, Kant’s Categorical Imperative, a deontological principle that focus essentially on duties, bases in 3 formulations: act only on rules (or maxims) that you would be willing to see everyone follow; each person has dignity and moral worth and should never be exploited or manipulated or merely used as a means to another end; and we do not need an external authority—be it God, the