Business Ethics
Business Ethics
Assignment 1
Introduction
This essay is to generally discuss how ethical theories provide guides in valuing human being’s behaviours to be ethically good or bad. We also have a look in different ethical theories to see why they are incompatible. The ethical theories include Utilitarianism, Kantian moral theory, virtue ethics and rights theory. Drawing on two of the theories, we will outline their positions and critically discuss the claim in a business situation. We will also outline and access at criticism level for these two theories.
Purpose of ethical theory
An ethical theory is to provide theory for people to value human beings through their behaviors, to access a person if he/she is ethical good or bad through his/her actions, like be honest, not to steal, not to kill, etc. Although there are basic moralities that every person follows in all places (Beauchamp & Bowie, 2004), in different background culture or different situations, people have different judgments about the actions. Ethical theory gives us a guide to choose the best option of actions in a certain situation which counts as most significant ethically.
Comparing ethical theories
Different ethical theories have different approaches to valuing human beings through their actions. (The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, 2006, M1, p51) Each theory has different ideas about an action to be considered ethically good, therefore ethical theories are incompatible. For example, friend A asks me to tell the truth of friend B who wants me to keep secret, honest virtue would allow me to tell the truth; but utilitarianism would argue that I need to think about the foreseeable consequences of this action which would cause harm to friend B; rights theory would say I need to respect friend B’s negative right of privacy and not to tell the truth to others; and Kantian deontological moral theory would pick out the principle of the action and say we could not treat a person
Assignment 1
Introduction
This essay is to generally discuss how ethical theories provide guides in valuing human being’s behaviours to be ethically good or bad. We also have a look in different ethical theories to see why they are incompatible. The ethical theories include Utilitarianism, Kantian moral theory, virtue ethics and rights theory. Drawing on two of the theories, we will outline their positions and critically discuss the claim in a business situation. We will also outline and access at criticism level for these two theories.
Purpose of ethical theory
An ethical theory is to provide theory for people to value human beings through their behaviors, to access a person if he/she is ethical good or bad through his/her actions, like be honest, not to steal, not to kill, etc. Although there are basic moralities that every person follows in all places (Beauchamp & Bowie, 2004), in different background culture or different situations, people have different judgments about the actions. Ethical theory gives us a guide to choose the best option of actions in a certain situation which counts as most significant ethically.
Comparing ethical theories
Different ethical theories have different approaches to valuing human beings through their actions. (The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, 2006, M1, p51) Each theory has different ideas about an action to be considered ethically good, therefore ethical theories are incompatible. For example, friend A asks me to tell the truth of friend B who wants me to keep secret, honest virtue would allow me to tell the truth; but utilitarianism would argue that I need to think about the foreseeable consequences of this action which would cause harm to friend B; rights theory would say I need to respect friend B’s negative right of privacy and not to tell the truth to others; and Kantian deontological moral theory would pick out the principle of the action and say we could not treat a person
References: Beauchamp, T. L., & Bowie, N. E. (2004). Ethical theory and business (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Immigration New Zealand, (2005). Business regulation. Retrieved on 04 Apr. 2006 from http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/invest/startingabusiness/whatopportunitiesarethere/nzbusinessscene/businesslegislation/businessregulations.htm The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, (2006). Learning guide, Module 1, In 71203 Business ethics (7th ed.). Lower Hutt, New Zealand.