PHIL 1317 Business Ethics Midterm Study Guide

Amoral

Conditions or activities in which morality does not apply (distinct from 'immoral', which involves offenses against morality or ethics.)

Shareholder

someone who invests in a company by buying its stock, hence also called 'stockholder'; this entitles one to a share of the company's profit.

Stakeholder

anyone who has a significant material interest (a 'stake') in the activities of a company. This includes shareholders, employees, retirees, customers, suppliers and vendors; and some theorists include the host community where the firm is located, and even society at large.

Narrow view of corporate responsibility

Corporations are only obligated to serve the interests of the owner, partners or shareholders of a company, by trying to maximize their profits within the "rules of the game" — the law, and fundamental moral principles, like the prohibition of coercion or fraud.

Broad view of corporate responsibility

Corporations are obligated to give "due consideration" to the interests of all stakeholders. All broad theorists insist on not causing unnecessary harm to stakeholders, while others go further and insist that corporations make efforts to benefit stakeholders whenever feasible.

Solomon's 3 C's

Compliance, Contribution, Consequences

Compliance

Businesses must act in compliance with laws and moral standards of both their local communities and the world. They must not engage in fraud or deceive customers.

Contribution

Businesses must provide a positive contribution to society and develop a product or service that is not a detriment (such as a torture device).

Consequences

All actions of businesses with have consequences, either positive or negative, that will not only affect the individual, but the firm, the entire industry, and all of the people involved with the business in any way. This includes employees, customers, shareholders, etc.

Psychological Egoism

People always act solely in their own self-interest when making decisions.

Ethical Egoism

Also known as "normative egoism." The idea that a person's self-interest should always take priority (even if they don't cognitively believe that they are acting for him or her self).

Kant's Respect Principle

Treat personhood, whether you find it in yourself or in another individual, always as an end in itself, never solely as a means.

Dignity

Treating an individual's personhood as an end in itself means trading it in the highest priority, intrinsic value that Kant calls:

Price

To treat an individual's personhood solely as a means; treating the individual as having only instrumental value (like a tool)

Dignity, Price

Only persons possess __________, but anything, from mere things on up through persons., can possess _________.

Dignity, Autonomous

________ is the moral status that goes with the metaphysical status of being _________.

Coercion, fraud, deceit, dishonesty, violation of property rights, depriving people of resources, narrowing range of choices, etc.

Name some interferences of autonomy - ANSWERS WILL VARY

Price

• Is derived from the thing's usefulness; it is what most people call use-value or utility. (A useless thing has no value.)

• Is quantitative, measurable, a matter of degree.

• Is exchangeable.

• Can be lost.

Dignity

• Is not derived from anything (especially not from usefulness); it is rather intrinsic, inherent, inalienable.

• Is not quantitative, measureable, or a matter of degree.

• Is not exchangeable or negotiable.

• Cannot be lost

False

True or False? In Socrates Comes to Wall Street, the CEO is unable to respond to Socrates' feigned claim that ethics is rubbish.

False

True or False? Socrates and Wendy end up agreeing with the real Socrates' idea that happiness is obtainable by living a virtuous life, but not with his idea that vice ends up harming those who engage in it.

False

True or False? Emotional health and safety, the absence of pain and suffering, and getting sufficient rest are all on Wendy's list of tangible needs, but not skills, knowledge, social interactions, or access to meaningful relationships.

True

True or False? Her criterion for something counting as a need, and not just a want, is that it be a necessary condition for healthy growth and development and a basic sense of satisfaction or well being.

True

True or False? To apply the Principle of Utility, one must consider all feasible options in the choice situation, and estimate the harm and benefits that are likely to accrue to all those affected by each option.

Principle of Utility

Actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain.

False

True or False? While Utilitarians place a high value on happiness, they maintain that the morality of an action is more important than its effect on happiness.

False

True or False? For a Utilitarian, it can never be morally permissible to cause harm to the individual you are acting towards.

True

True or False? Rule Utilitarianism is primarily focused on formulating and justifying rules that would maximize social utility if adhered to, thus denying the appropriateness of applying the Principle of Utility to each particular act.

Summary of Respect Principle and Universalizability Principle

Everyone has a fundamental, non-negotiable moral right not to be used, manipulated, exploited, or harmed, in any way that a rational and impartial individual could not freely agree to.

True

True or False? According to Robert Solomon, the viability of business in general depends on mutual trust, adherence to rules, and a sense of fairness, with the result that companies who adopt practices running contrary to these values cannot reasonable expect to increase their profits in the long run.

False

True or False? Solomon holds that there is an intrinsic conflict between ethics and the successful conduct of business, so that the legal regulation of business is the only way society can cope with amoral business practices.

False

True or False? According to the handout, "Why so Unethical?," guilt at having violated on's commitment to internalized rules was the sanction that kept people from straying from the traditional path in pre-modern societies, whereas shame was used to keep people in line with moral principles in the modern era.

True

True or False? That handout also suggested a possible explanation for frequent wrongdoing in business: the fragmented knowledge conditions typical of contemporary bureaucratic contexts often leave people in the dark as to the full ethical significance of their actions.

False

True or False? John Mackey of Whole Foods agrees with economist Milton Friedman, that the primary goal of a business is to make profits for its shareholders.

False

True or False? Mackey disagrees with Friedman and Rodgers in golding that every corporation also has a strong moral duty to engage in philanthropy, even if doing so runs counter to the expectations of those who have invested their money in the corporation.

True

True or False? The fact that pressures to comply with the urgings of authority figures can lead individuals to compromise their personal ethics is illustrated by the Milgram experiments and other themes portrayed in the video, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

True

True or False? In Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, fraudulent attempts to misrepresent the company's finances were motivated in part by pressures to keep the company's stock price high.

Justice Objection

Act utilitarianism can obligate us to violate a person's rights or commit serious injustices. Because act utilitarianism promotes the overall utility, it can require us to sacrifice the well-being of an individual or a minority so that the majority will benefit.

Rawls' Veil of Ignorance

Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes.

Moral Law

A code of conduct, developed through reason, that is universal law.

Autonomous Beings

Rational choosers, are independent and have dignity, basically all persons.

True

True or False? Socrates represents Kant's philosophy as focused on respect for human dignity and as based on principles derived from reason alone.

False

True or False? Wendy accepts the idea that the end justifies the means, and so is unconcerned with whether or not a consistently applied policy would have to be able to work as a law of nature in order for actions carried out in accordance with it to count as moral.

Act Utilitarianism

Utilitarian theory of ethics which states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much happiness as any other act that the person could perform at that time.

Impracticality Objection

When you are unable to use Bentham's Act Utilitarianism based on time (impractical)

John Rawls

Author of A Theory of Justice

John Rawls

He claims that Utilitarianism is not really concerned with the happiness or well being of concrete flesh-and-blood individuals, but rather with the happiness of one abstract individual; viz., the logical construct that represents the mathematical aggregate, as it were, of all the actual living individuals affected by an actio

Kant

holds that happiness is an important value, but hardly the only one. In fact, happiness should be pursued, but only within limits that respect independently valid moral values and principles. For him, when happiness and values like justice conflict, it is happiness that should take the back seat.

Rule Utilitarianism

a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance".

Utilitarians

When happiness and justice do conflict, happiness should win out; justice should take a back seat. _________ hold that happiness is the only intrinsic value; all other values are values only because of their contribution to happiness

Pareto Optimality

When no one party can be made better off without making another party worse off.

Categorical Imperative

an unconditional moral obligation that is binding in all circumstances and is not dependent on a person's inclination or purpose.

Altruism

______ is the opposite of egoism

Utilitarianism

The Greatest Happiness principle relates to

Utilitarianism

the relevant consequences concern the effect on people's happiness

Deontology

focuses on the very nature of the action to be evaluated

Consequentialism

actions/practices are to be assessed in terms of their consequences. The more good the act produces, the better the act. The more bad the act produces, the worse the act.

Bentham

Utilitarian calculus was created by this man

Positive

Hedons are (positive/negative) utiles

Negative

Sedons are (positive/negative) utiles

Bentham

Who talked about the impracticality objection?

Rawls

talks about how fairness is important and the "original position" and how parties are self-interested, but not knowing of races or differences

Mill

_____'s response states that "there has been plenty of time for humanity to figure out the general tendencies of kinds of action.

Never

When does the quality of harm play a role in Socrates's discussion with Wendy?

Act Utilitarianism

Is Act Utilitarianism or Rule Utilitarianism impractical?

Rule Utilitarianism

Is Act Utilitarianism or Rule Utilitarianism practical?

Universalizability Principle

Act only on those policies that you can coherently and consistently will to become universal laws ---

- i.e., policies to be followed by everyone (in relevantly similar circumstances)

Respect Principle

Treat personhood, whether in yourself or in another, always as an end in itself, never as a means only.

Deontologist

Immanuel Kant is a ______, meaning he focuses on the very nature of the action itself

Moral Law

a universal code of conduct binding on all persons/ autonomous beings

False

True or False? Wendy does not accept the idea that the end justifies the means.

Opposites

Pride and Dignity are _______.