Business Ethics

Philosophical Approach
 Philosophy-
Fields of Study & Discourse
Logic
Esthetics
Ethics
Politics
Meta-Physics
– Ontology
– Epistemology
Theoretical Underpinnings

Teleological Theories

Deontological Theories

----------------------------------------------------
Do ends justify means ?
Utilitarian Approach

Jeremy Bentham & John Stuart Mill

“Greatest good of the greatest number”

Cost benefit analysis

Tenets of Utilitarianism

An action is ethical if
It produces greatest good of the greatest
number.
If its net benefits over costs outweigh net
benefits from possible choices.
If its immediate and future as also direct
and indirect benefits are greatest compared
with other choices.
Consequentialism

Maximise overall good (or minimise bad)

What is “good”?
– Pleasure - Knowledge
– Maturity - Friendship
Intellectual pleasure or physical pleasure
------------------------------------------------------
Better to be Socrates unsatisfied
than to be pig satisfied.
Duties, Rights & Justice

John Rawls

Equitable distribution of goods and

services

“Veil of Ignorance”
Rights & Duties

Legal rights and moral rights

Conflicts & hierarchies

Richard DeGeorge…..on Justice

Compensatory Justice

Retributive Justice

Distributive Justice

Procedural Justice
Universalism

Immanuel Kant

Rightness of rules and not its consequences

Categorical Imperative
Religious Perspectives

Faith & intuition (rather than reason or

knowledge) provide the foundation of
moral life.

Ten Commandments
Confucius Maxims
“Dharma”
Summarizing principles

Utilitarianism / Consequentialism
Rights & Duties
Justice
Universalism
Religious Perspectives