AK- ethics and corporate governance navita sem 6 PDF

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Summary

Module 1 Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevan...

Description

Module 1 Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.[1] These ethics originate from individuals, organizational statements or from the legal system. These norms, values, ethical, and unethical practices are what is used to guide business. They help those businesses maintain a better connection with their stakeholders.[2] Business ethics refers to contemporary organizational standards, principles, sets of values and norms that govern the actions and behavior of an individual in the business organization. Business ethics have two dimensions, normative or descriptive. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive methods. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic concerns.

What are Values? According to the dictionary, values are “things that have an intrinsic worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor,” or “principles, standards, or qualities considered worthwhile or desirable.” However, it is important to note that, although we may tend to think of a value as something good, virtually all values are morally relative – neutral, really – until they are qualified by asking, “How is it good?” or “Good to whom?” The “good” can sometimes be just a matter of opinion or taste, or driven by culture, religion, habit, circumstance, or environment, etc. Again, almost all values are relative. The exception, of course, is the value of life. Life is a universal, objective value. We might take this point for granted, but we all have the life value, or we would not be alive. Life is also a dual value – we value our own life and the lives of others.

What are Morals? Moral values are relative values that protect life and are respectful of the dual life value of self and others. The great moral values, such as truth, freedom, charity, etc., have one thing in common. When they are functioning correctly, they are life protecting or life enhancing for all. But they are still relative values. Our relative moral values must be constantly examined to make sure that they are always performing their life-protecting mission. Even the Marine Corps core values of “honor, courage and commitment” require examination in this context. Courage can become foolish martyrdom, commitment can become irrational fanaticism, honor can become self-righteousness, conceit, and disrespect for others. Our enemies have their own standard of honor, they have courage, and they are surely committed. What sets us apart? Respect for the universal life value sets us apart from our enemies.

What is Ethics? A person who knows the difference between right and wrong and chooses right is moral. A person whose morality is reflected in his willingness to do the right thing – even if it is hard or dangerous – is ethical. Ethics are moral values in action. Being ethical id an imperative because morality protects life and is respectful of others – all others. It is a lifestyle that is consistent with mankind’s universal values as articulated by the American Founding Fathers – human equality and the inalienable right to life. As warriors it is our duty to be protectors and defenders of the life value and to perform the unique and

difficult mission of taking the lives of those acting immorally (against life) when necessary to protect the lives of innocent others. When you must kill protecting life it is still hard, but it is moral. Those who kill those not observant of their narrow relative religious, ethnic or criminal values – in other words, kill over relative values – are immoral. A dedication to protecting the life value of self and others – all others – makes the Ethical Warrior different and moral.

Concept of utilitarism An ethical philosophy in which the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest good. According to this philosophy, an action is morally right if its consequences lead to happiness (absence of pain), and wrong if it ends in unhappiness (pain). Since the link between actions and their happy or unhappy outcomes depends on the circumstances, no moral principle is absolute or necessary in itself under utilitarianism. Proposed by the English philosopher-reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in his 1789 book Principles Of Morals And Legislation it was developed by the English philosopher-economist John Stuart Mill (1806-73) in his 1863 book Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill, is an essay written to provide support for the value of utilitarianism as a moral theory, and to respond to misconceptions about it. Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be weighted more heavily than baser pleasures. Furthermore, Mill argues that people's achievement of goals and ends, such as virtuous living, should be counted as part of their happiness. Mill argues that utilitarianism coincides with "natural" sentiments that originate from humans' social nature. Therefore, if society were to embrace utilitarianism as an ethic, people would naturally internalize these standards as morally binding. Mill argues that happiness is the sole basis of morality, and that people never desire anything but happiness. He supports this claim by showing that all the other objects of people's desire are either means to happiness, or included in the definition of happiness. Mill explains at length that the sentiment of justice is actually based on utility, and that rights exist only because they are necessary for human happiness.

The theory of utilitarianism has been criticized for many reasons. Critics hold that it does not provide adequate protection for individual rights, that not everything can be measured by the same standard, and that happiness is more complex than reflected by the theory. Mill's essay represents his attempt to respond to these criticisms, and thereby to provide a more complex and nuanced moral theory. Mill's argument comprises five chapters. His first chapter serves as an introduction to the essay. In his second chapter, Mill discusses the definition of utilitarianism, and presents some misconceptions about the theory. The third chapter is a discussion about the ultimate sanctions (or rewards) that utilitarianism can offer. The fourth chapter discusses methods of proving the validity of utilitarianism. In his fifth chapter, Mill writes about the connection between justice and utility, and argues that happiness is the foundation of justice. Rule utilitarisim rule utilitarianism is 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".

CONCEPT OF UNIVERSALISIM Universalism, in a general sense, is an idea or belief in the existence of a universal, objective or eternal truth that it determines everything, therefore, is and must be equally present in all human beings. A universalist thinking ensures the accuracy of a way unique or specific view, explain, or organize the world. Moral universalism Moral universalism is the ethical stance that defends the existence of a universal moral truth about each particular moral issue.

Definition of universalism Universalism is the philosophical doctrine that affirms the existence of certain principles that are universally indisputable, for being real, and which must therefore be admitted by all persons and cultural groups as a guide for their conduct and to distinguish the good deeds of the evil. On the theological level, each religion tries to their beliefs to be recognized as the only true. Politically, is cocentrar and States seeking to extend their power through imperialist policies.

DEFINATION OF RIGHTS

Rights: Meaning and theories; different kinds of rights; concept of Human Rights A right is described as an entitlement or justified claim to a certain kind of positive and negative treatment from others, to support from others or non-interference from others. In other words, a right is something to which every individual in the community is morally permitted, and for which that community is entitled to disrespect or compulsorily remove anything that stands in the way of even a single individual getting it. Rights belong to individuals, and no organisation has any rights not directly derived from those of its members as individuals; and, just as an individual's rights cannot extend to where they will intrude on another individual's rights, similarly the rights of any organisation whatever must yield to those of a single individual, whether inside or outside the organisation. Rights are those important conditions of social life without which no person can generally realize his best self. These are the essential conditions for health of both the individual and his society. It is only when people get and enjoy rights that they can develop their personalities and contributes their best services to the society.

Main features of Rights: 1. Rights exist only in society. These are the products of social living. 2. Rights are claims of the individuals for their development in society. 3. Rights are recognized by the society as common claims of all the people. 4. Rights are rational and moral claims that the people make on their society. 5. Since rights are here only in society, these cannot be exercised against the society. 6. Rights are to be exercised by the people for their development which really means their development in society by the promotion of social good. Rights can never be exercised against social good. 7. Rights are equally available to all the people. 8. The contents of rights keep on changing with the passage of time.

Theories of rights: There are compelling theories of rights offered by several theorists.

Utilitarianism: For the utilitarian, the just action is that which, relative to all other possible actions, maximises utility or “the good” (defining “the good” is the subject of philosophical conjecture and beyond our scope here). This is the utility principle. Utilitarianism is solely consequentialist; the justice or injustice of an action or state of affairs is determined exclusively by the consequences it brings about. If an action maximises utility, it is just. On this account, therefore, rights are purely instrumental. It is also worth noting that many in the utilitarian tradition have expressed hostility to the notion of rights of any sort. Utilitarian will honour a right if and only if it will lead to the maximisation of utility. This statement also indicates the limits of all rights. If the exercise of a particular will not maximise utility, the utilitarian is obligated to violate that person’s rights for the sake of utility. The point at which the letter of the right defeats the purpose (i.e. the point at which the exercise of a particular right will not maximise utility) is the point at which society may justly curtail that right. Rights are limited by the utility principle. If the exercise of a right maximises the good, the right ought to hold. If it fails to do so, the right may be justly abridged. Challengers of the utilitarian account of rights argue that in some cases it extends rights too far and in other cases it restricts rights unjustly.

Kantianism (Deontology): Kant proposes that the essence of morality is captured by what has been called the Categorical Imperative. In below paraphrase, this reads: Act only on those rules of action that you could be universal laws. The Categorical Imperative is a rule for testing rules of conduct. It will exclude as immoral any rule of conduct that implies that one person may do something but another, in relevantly similar circumstances, may not. In other words, it demands consistency. What's all right for me is all right for you if our relevant circumstances are similar. If I may throw my toxic waste into the river to save money for myself, then you may do so likewise. But of course I would not want you to do that, so it would be wrong for me. This is relevant to human rights, because we think of human rights as universally applicable to human beings. And Kant says that what is morally permissible applies to all rational beings. It is also relevant that this test tends to endorse rules of action that protect our most basic interests, just the sorts of things that rights protect. Kantianism is an explicitly non-consequentialist ethic. Kant believed that the consequences of our actions are often determined by contextual factors beyond the control of the individual. Honour and blame are only coherent concepts where the subject is responsible for what they

have done. In all appeals to consequences, the locus of responsibility must necessarily be displaced to a broad array of factors, only one part of which is the agency of the individual in question. Moral responsibility for consequence, therefore, is incoherent. Ethics must be a matter of intentions, these being the only things we can evaluate without extrinsic influence. The right action therefore is that which is done in conformity with our moral duty, regardless of consequence. In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argued that one ought to “act only according to that maxim whereby one can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, our own conduct is only ever just if we can in all conscience will that every other person acted the same way. In the same work, he also professed that one should “Treat humanity, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” Similarly, our conduct is only just if, in acting, we do not use any other person as a tool to achieve our own objectives. In common way, our moral duty is to only act where our actions satisfy the two tests outlined - universalizability and the ends/means requirement.

Laski’s Theory of Rights: Harold Laski, an influential figure and creative writer of political science, who authored about 20 books, has expounded the theory of rights and it is in many respects a classic representation. He describes rights as “those conditions of social life without which no man can seek, in general, to be himself at his best”. Laski calls rights as conditions of social life. Rights are social concept and deeply linked with social life. The essentiality of rights is established by the fact that individuals claim them for the development of their best self. He places rights, individuals and state on the same board in the sense that they cannot be separated from each other and there is no antagonism between them. Laski recommends the long-cherished view that the state has a very important role to play in the realisation and, before that, recognition of human rights. On legal theories of rights, Laski examines the legal theory of state. The central principle of the legal theory of rights is that they completely depend upon the institutions and recognition of state. An individual cannot claim rights if those are not recognised by the state. Mere recognition, moreover, is not sufficient for the exercise of rights. The state must, through law and institutions, implement the rights. The most significant part of Laski’s theory is functional aspect of rights. It emphasizes on the relation between right and duty. He stated that Rights are correlative to functions. The functional theory emphasizes that an individual is entitled to claim rights only when he performs duty otherwise the claim or demand for right cannot be entertained. This definitely opposes widely known theory of legal theory of rights. But today, rights are recognised and protected mainly on political considerations.

Barker’s Theory of Right: Barker’s view is not theoretically dissimilar from that of Laski. Both are liberal philosophers, but Barker has a clear bias to idealism. The main purpose of every political organisation called state is to see that the personality of the individual gets ample scope for development. It is the duty of the state to guarantee and secure the conditions essential for that objective. These secured and guaranteed conditions are called rights. Individual’s personality cannot develop automatically or

under most adverse or antagonistic environment. Development of personality requires favourable conditions and these are to be guaranteed by the state through the enactment of law. Barker also discusses the moral aspect of rights. He says, that law of the state helps me to secure rights. But rights are claims and the origin is the individual himself. The individual is a moral person and it is his determination that he will develop his moral personality through the rights. His purpose is not to inflict any harm upon the society. The implication of moral being is,he releases his best efforts for the general welfare of society.

THEORY OF JUSTICE Fairness in protection of rights and punishment of wrongs. While all legal systems aim to uphold this ideal through fair and proper administration of the law of the land, it is possible to have unjust laws. Justice is what we as a society regard as “right” based on our moral concepts of ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. Justice needs to be in the light of the democratic principle of the ‘rule of law’. The rule of law is a concept that denotes that all decisions need to be made in accordance with the law. Nobody is exempt from the law. VIRTUE ETHICS Virtue ethics (or aretaic ethics[1] /ˌærə ˈte ɪɪk/ , from Greek ἀρετή (arete)) are normative ethical theories which emphasize virtues of mind and character. Virtue ethicists discuss the nature and definition of virtues and other related problems. For example, how are virtues acquired? How are they applied in various real life contexts? Are virtues rooted in a universal human nature or in a plurality of cultures?

Vi r t ueet hi cs Character-based ethics 

A right act is the action a virtuous person would do in the same circumstances. Virtue ethics is person rather than action based: it looks at the virtue or moral character of the person carrying out an action, rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the consequences of particular actions. Virtue ethics not only deals with the rightness or wrongness of individual actions, it provides guidance as to the sort of characteristics and behaviours a good person will seek to achieve. In that way, virtue ethics is concerned with the whole of a person's life, rather than particular episodes or actions.

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A good person is someone who lives virtuously - who possesses and lives the virtues.

ETHICS OF CARE

ETHI CSOFCARE

Theet hi csofcar ei sadi st i nct i v eappr oacht omor al t heor yt hat emphasi z est hei mpor t anceofr esponsi bi l i t y ,concer n,and r el at i onshi pov erconsequences( ut i l i t ar i ani sm)orr ul es ( deont ol ogi sm) .Theconceptofcar ei si nher entt opr of essi ons t hatcar ef ori ndi vi dual sandt hi sappr oacht oet hi cshast her ef or e beenac ent r alpar tofpr of essi onal et hi cali ssuesi nbot hnur si ng andmedi cal et hi cs ,buti nf acthasmuchbr oaderappl i cat i onsi n r el at i ont os ci enceandt echnol ogy ." Duecar e"hasf orexampl e, beenapar tofst at ement si nengi neer i ngandhasbeenusedt o i ncl udes ucht y pi cal l yt echni cal act i vi t i esast hemai nt enanceand r epai rofanengi neer eds y st em. the ethics of care” implies that t...