THEORIES IN

ETHICS

Presented By:Somya (13105001)Khushbu(13105021)

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Lets see an example….

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The Reluctant Donor Case: Suppose that you are famous transplant

surgeon, and that your transplants always work. You have five patients,

each of whom needs a transplant. One needs a heart, one a brain, two

need one lung each, and one needs a liver. You have a patient named

“Mr. Kumar” who has come in today to find out the results from some

lab work. You know from the results of the lab work that Mr. Kumar

would be a perfect donor for each of your five other patients, and you

know that

there are no other available donors. So you ask Mr. Kumar if he would

be willing to be cut up and have his organs distributed. He declines

your kind offer. But you then realize that you could cut Mr. Kumar up

without his permission during some minor surgery he has already

consented to. Is it permissible for you do so?

Business Ethics: What Does It

Really Mean?

Definitions

• Ethics involves a discipline that examines good

or bad practices within the context of a moral

duty

• Moral conduct is behavior that is right or wrong

• Business ethics include practices and

behaviors that are good or bad

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Business Ethics: What Does It

Really Mean?

Two Key Branches of Ethics

• Descriptive ethics involves describing,

characterizing and studying morality

– “What is”

• Normative ethics involves supplying and

justifying moral systems

– “What should be”

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Sources of Ethical Norms

Fellow Workers

Family

Friends

The Law

Regions of

Country

Profession

Employer

Society at LargeReligious

Beliefs

The Individual

Conscience

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Ethics and the Law

• Law often represents an ethical minimum

• Ethics often represents a standard that exceeds

the legal minimum

Ethics Law

Frequent Overlap

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Making Ethical Judgments

Behavior or act

that has been

committed

Prevailing norms

of acceptability

Value judgments

and perceptions of

the observer

compared with

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3 Models of Management Ethics

Three Types Of Management Ethics

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Three Models of Management

Morality and Emphasis on CSR

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Developing Moral Judgment

External Sources of a Manager’s Values

• Religious values

• Philosophical values

• Cultural values

• Legal values

• Professional values

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Developing Moral Judgment

Internal Sources of a Manager’s Values

• Respect for the authority structure

• Loyalty

• Conformity

• Performance

• Results

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Can Business Ethics Be Taught

And Trained?

• Ethic courses should not:

– Advocate a set of rules from a single perspective

– Not offer only one best solution to specific ethical

problems

– Not promise superior or absolute ways of thinking and

behaving in situations

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Can Business Ethics Be Taught

And Trained?• Scholars argue that ethical training can add value to the

moral environment of a firm and to relationships in the

workplace by:

– Finding a match between employer’s and employee’s

values

– Handling an unethical directive

– Coping with a performance system that encourages

unethical means

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Ethics-Moral Disengagement

• Social Learning Theory

– Moral reasoning translates to moral action through

self regulatory processes

• You do things that bring you self-worth

• You avoid things that avoid self censure

• You have to disengage from your normal internal

self sanctions to commit unethical or deviant

acts

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Theories of Ethics

• Four major theories of ethics in the Western

world

– Utilitarianism: net benefits

– Rights: entitlement

– Justice: fairness

– Egoism: self-interest

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How does this work?

Inclination Intended Result

Will

Duty Actual Result

What makes an act right or wrong?

Ethical Theory 1: Utilitarianism

• Famous Proponents: Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill

• What makes something good or bad, right or wrong, is that it

produces the greatest amount of pleasure (or lack of pain) for the

greatest number of people

• Basic Principle: Greatest Happiness Principle

Maximizing positive outcomes for the largest number of people,

negative outcomes for lowest number of people

One should chose the action which will lead to the greatest happiness

(i.e. pleasure, lack of pain) overall

One’s own pleasure and pain only count as much as any other

person’s affected 17

Utilitarianism (Contd)

• Assessment of net benefits includes any important indirect

effects

• Example: assessing the effects of pollutant discharge

from a factory on the immediate surrounding environment

and those down stream or down wind from the factory

• Two forms: act and rule

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Act utilitarianism

• It asks a person to assess the effects of all actions

• Rejects the view that actions can be classified as

right or wrong in themselves

• Example: lying is ethical if it produces more good

than bad

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Rule utilitarianism

• It asks a person to assess actions according to a set of

rules designed to yield the greatest net benefit to all

affected

• Compares act to rules

• Does not accept an action as right if it maximizes net

benefits only once

• Example: lying is always wrong or “thou shalt not lie”20

Limitations of Utilitarianism

• Hard to use in difficult to quantify situations

• Does not include rights and justice

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Example

• A few doctors decide that a number of

experiments on a few people, even if most of

them died, would be worth it if they could find a

cure for a disease that would relieve the

suffering of millions of people. Utilitarianism

would give the approval for such because it

produces the greatest good for the greatest

number of people.

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Inclination Intended Result

Will

Duty Actual Result

What makes an act right or wrong?

Ethical Theory 2: Justice

• Looks at the balance of benefits and burdens distributedamong members of a group

• Can result from the application of rules, policies, or laws thatapply to a society or a group

• Just results of actions override utilitarian results

• Rejects view that an injustice is acceptable if others benefitthe action

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Ethical Theory 3: Rights

• Right: a person’s just claim or entitlement

• Focuses on the person’s actions or the actions of

others toward the person Legal rights: defined by a system of laws

Moral rights: based on ethical standards

• Purpose: let a person freely pursue certain actions

without interference from others

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Rights (contd)

• Features

• Respect the rights of others

• Lets people act as equals

• Moral justification of a person’s action

• Examples

• Legal right: right to a fair trial in the United States

• Moral right: right to due process within an organization

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Rights (contd)

• Rejects view of assessing the results of actions

• Expresses moral rights from individual's view, not society's.

Does not look to the number of people who benefit from

limiting another person's rights

• Example: right to free speech in the United States stands

even if a person expresses a dissenting view

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Types Of Rights

• Negative rights: do not interfere with another person’s rights

• Positive rights: A person has a duty to help others pursue their rights

Negative: do not stop a person from whistleblowing

Positive: coworker helps another person blow

the whistle on unethical actions

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Inclination Intended Result

Will

Duty Actual Result

What makes an act right or wrong?

Ethical Theory 4: Egoism

• Famous Proponents: Ayn Rand, Adam Smith

• What makes something good or bad, right or wrong, is that it

satisfies one’s desires, or meets one’s needs

• Basic Principle: Self-interest of person doing, considering, or

affected by the action

• One should chose the action which most realizes or conduces to

one’s own self-interest

• Important Variation: should the person look simply to self-

interest, or to enlightened or rational self-interest?

• Conception of Rational Self-Interest is basic component of

capitalist economy and business models30

Types of Egoism

Individual Ethical Egoism

– Judges actions only by their effects on one’s interests

– Usually rejected by moral philosophers as a defensible basis of ethics

Universal Ethical Egoism

– Can include the interests of others when assessing one’s actions

– Still self-centered: pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain

– “Enlightened self-interest.” Considers the interests of others because

the person wants others to do the same toward him or her

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Objections regarding Egoism

Theory

• Does not resolve conflicts in people’s interests

• One party would always have the pursuit of his or her

interests blocked

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Questions From The Ethical Theories

• Utilitarianism: does the action yield the greatest netbenefits?

• Rights: does the action negatively affect someone’s moralrights?

• Justice: does the action give a fair distribution of costs andbenefits among those affected?

• Egoism: will the action lead to other people behavingtoward me in a way I would like? 33

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Thank

You..!!!