BUSI 404 Ethics

2 Types of Moral Problems

Normative (Ought) and Descriptive (Is)

Normative

What ought people do? Teaching students how to critically reason through moral issues to determine the right course of action.

Descriptive

Why do we fail to live up to our moral ideals? Assumes students already have values; the challenge is to get them to behave in accordance to those values

Normative Ethics

The study of ethical action. The area of ethics concerned with the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking.

Tree of Philosophy

Ethics has it's own branch made up of the branches of Meta Ethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics. Business Ethics is a branch of Applied Ethics.

The Ideal Moral Judgement

A theory's principles must provide compelling explanation of why certain things are good or right while others are bad or wrong. Just because something is complicated, it's not impossible to figure out what makes something right or wrong.

Moral Objectivism

There are objective moral truths

Moral Relativism

Morality is relative (opinionated i.e. to a person, time period, society). There is no correct answer. When using any rational logic/reasoning to argue about morality ever(such as extreme cases, those must stay the same), then you're an objectivist.

3 Ways to NOT Answer Moral Questions

Inconsistency, Narrow Scope, Population Statistics

Inconsistency

Must apply the same moral standards to one situation that we apply to another unless we can show that the two situations differ in relevant ways.

Narrow Scope

Wider the principle’s scope, the greater its potential uses (Be general enough to apply across situations)

Population Statistics

If a majority of people believe that child labor is OK, it doesn’t mean child labor is morally right. The average American has credit card debt, is credit card debt good then?

Class 1 Takeaway

In the same way that the success of a company can be evaluated, so can the morality of behavior. One may disagree about how to do so (Profit, ROI, share value), but we agree that there is a way to work through these questions logically. Just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile

How can we evaluate the moral impact of our behaviors?

Consequentialism

Consequentialism

An approach to ethics arguing that only consequences are what makes something morally good or bad

Utility

Desirable Consequences

Disutility

Undesirable Consequences

Utilitarianism

Humans are not divine or special, and as individuals have no intrinsic value. The happiness of the majority is what counts (Not egoists). Greatest Happiness Principle.

Greatest Happiness Principle

The action we ought to perform in a given situation is the one that promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

Which act ought we carry out?

1) Identify the choices 2) Determine utility and subtract disutility 3) The outcome that leads to the greatest overall utility is for act utilitarians the morally right thing to do.

Utilitarian Calculus

7 Factors like intensity, duration, certainty of pain, etc…

Act Utilitarianism

We need to work out the good and bad effects of each individual action. If made this choice this one time, what would create the most happiness?

Rule Utilitarianism

We can aggregate certain actions to figure out their general effects. If I made this choice every time, what would create the most happiness?

Peter Singer

Argues proximity is irrelevant (choosing whether to help someone shouldn’t be discouraged by location). Give up resources to the point of marginal utility (Give as much as you can, before reaching the point where giving more would hurt you just as much as it helps someone else).

Trolley Problem

Highlights ethical choices

1% Pledge

Most people can have huge impact with 1% donation of their salary while living comfortable with 99% of their annual salary.

WSJ Business Schools Reading

Ethics education improved after scandals but remains hard to teach and measure. It is often separated from core courses, while students become more profit-focused. Employers undervalue it, and attention fades without crises. Ethics is important so that mistakes aren’t repeated.