Chapter 1 lesson 1.

3: Codes of Right Conduct

Common Vs. Greatest Good

Common Good

 is that principle that whatever serves the most number of members in a community is considered
good.
 usually whatever rules or actions are required to reduce the disharmony in the community.

Greatest Good

 is the principle that there is a standard that people must cooperatively strive for to maximize the
harmony in the community

Codes of Right Conduct

 Code has value just like an internal guideline and an external statement of corporate values and
commitments.
 spells out an organization’s mission, values and principles, connecting them with standards of
professional conduct.
 expresses the value the organizations desire to promote in leaders and employees.
 simply defines preferred behavior.
 it is a fundamental guide and reference for employees to support everyday decision making
 pushes discussions of ethics and obedience, authorizing employees to manage ethical problems
they come across in daily work.
 can also provide as a helpful reference, assisting employees trace pertinent documents, services
and other resources.
 It tells a story about what the company believes and cares about, what it is truly committed to
and the way it can be expected to act.
 a shared of values that prescribed for right action.

Two Types of Moral Theory

1. Consequentialist
 focuses on the outcomes of actions, settling on whether or not an action is good by
knowing the results. Utilitarianism is a common theory under this kind. “The greatest
good for the greatest number.”
2. Non-consequentialist
 centers on the principle that an action is good based on the principle people follow and
regardless of the results of the action.

Deontological Theory

o Greek word “deontos”. A phrase that shows the attitude using this approach is
“People have an obligation to respect the rights of the individual.”
In trying to clarify what “right action” is, codes of conduct are often a combination of both deontological
and utilitarian approaches. They are expression of the deontological approach, in that they are saying,
“Here are the principles to stand for.” Yet they have a utilitarian flavor in that they say, “everyone will be
more contented if all observe the same standards.”

 Virtue Theory
o Third approach to defining right action, neither consequentialist nor non-consequentialist
o here, one decides that “the right thing to do” is based on an idea of how a virtuous person
would behave in such a situation.
 Unusual
o fourth approach that of care ethics
o here, instead of intellectual analysis, right action consists of feeling from the heart.
o simply means that what makes an action right is how greatly the action will increase the
network of caring relationships.

Utilitarianism

Utility

 is any benefits produced by an action

Principle of Utility

 affirms that actions or behaviors are right if they encourage happiness of pleasure, wrong if they
generate unhappiness or pain.

Utilitarianism

 attempts to answer the question about what a man ought to do.

 the answer to this is that he ought to act to create the best consequences.
o these consequences include all of the good and bad produced by the act, whether after
the act has been performed or during its performance.
o if discrepancy in the consequences of alternative act is not big, the choice between them
is less considered as moral issue.
 Utilitarianism is complex because this single principle has to reflect on three things:
1. What is Good
 Hedonism (Jeremy Bentham) – means the only thing that is good in itself is
pleasure or happiness. Ex. food, friends, freedom etc.
 pleasure and happiness are categorized as “Intrinsic Goods”.
 In the absence of these intrinsic goods is instrumentally bas for the reason
that it produces pain suffering and unhappiness.
2. Whose Well-Being
 utilitarian logic can be used both for moral reasoning and rational decision-
making.
  it can also be used for discussions on the interests of different persons and
groups.
i. Individual self-interest - Individuals consider only their own utility
when deciding what to do. (how the various possible choices will
influence this person’s interest and does not think about the interest
of other people).
ii. Groups - People also need to judge what is best for groups like
families, friends, religious groups. one’s country and even the world.
(which actions and policies would maximize the well-being of the
relevant group both benefits and losses).
iii. Everyone Affected - “equal consideration of interest” (Peter Singer).
 Utilitarian moral theory includes the important idea that the
calculation of utility of actions, laws, or policies must be from
an impartial perspective and there should be no partiality.
3. Actual consequences or foreseeable consequences
 the real effects of actions differ from what are expected.

Deontology

 is an approach that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves.

Deontologist

 whether a situation is good or bad depends on whether the action that brought it about was right
or wrong.

Immanuel Kant

 concluded that to be truly good the act must be chosen and done out of a feeling of moral duty.
He also believes that if an action is not done with the motive of duty, then it is without moral
value and therefore worthless.
 He developed his moral philosophy in three works:
1. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785)
2. Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
3. Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
He formulated it in three ways:
1. Act only in such way that one would want his actions to become a universal law,
applicable to everyone in similar situation.
2. Act in a such way that one always treats humanity (whether oneself or other), as
both the means of an action, but as an end.
3. Act as through one was a law-making member (and also the king) of a
hypothetical “kingdom of ends”, and therefore only in such a way that would
harmonized with such a kingdom if those laws were binding on all others.
Other Types of Deontology

1. Divine command theory

 means an action is right if God has declared that it is right, and that is an act is obligatory
if and only if it is commanded by God.
2. Natural rights theory
 holds that humans have absolute natural rights
i. natural right is based on a political theory that every person has basic rights that
the government cannot deny.
3. Contractarian Ethics
 refers to both the theory in political philosophy on the legitimacy of political authority,
and the ethical theory concerning the origin, or legitimate content, of moral norms.
 Social Contract – is the thought that the people give up some rights to a government
and/or other authority in order to receive, or jointly preserve, social order.
 Social Contract Theory - provides the basis behind the historically important concept that
legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed, where the
form and content of this consent derives from the idea of contract or mutual agreement.
4. Pluralistic Deontology (W.D Ross)
 He argues that there are seven prime duties which should to be considered when deciding
which duty should be acted upon:
i. Duty of beneficence - to help other people to improve their conditions like
increase their pleasure, improve their character and so on.
ii. Duty of non-maleficence – to avoid harming people
iii. Duty of Justice – to ensure people will get what they deserve
iv. Duty of self-improvement – to improve one self
v. Duty of reparation – to recompense someone if one has acted wrongly towards
them
vi. Duty of Gratitude – to return favors that others have done
vii. Duty of Fidelity – to keep promises both explicit and implicit promises, including
the implicit promise to tell the truth

In some situation, there may be disagreements or arguments between these duties.

Hence, a decision must be prepared whereby one duty may “trump” another, although, there are
no firm and fast rules and no fixed order of significance.

Virtue Theory

According to:

Plato – discussed four key virtues which are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice.

Aristotle – when people acquire good habits of character, they are better able to control
their emotions and their reason. (Virtue ethics is person based)

 it deals with the rightness or wrongness of individual actions and provides guidance as to the kind
of characteristics and behaviors a good person will seek to attain.
  it is a valuable theory because human beings are frequently more concerned in judging the
character of another person than they are in appraising the goodness or badness of a particular
action.
 An approach that deemphasizes rules, consequences and particular acts and sets the focus on the
kind of person who is acting
 puts minimal importance on which rules people should follow. instead it focuses on helping
people develop good character traits, such as kindness and generosity.
 for virtue theory to be actually valuable it needs to recommend only minimum set of
characteristics that a person needs to possess to be regarded as virtuous.

Care Ethics

 is centered on the interdependence of all individuals.

 it considers the reality that certain communities and people are weaker than others, and that
strong ones should give more concern to the weaker community depending on how they are
affected by their choices.
 does not endorse a dependency among people but promotes maintaining interdependence and
shared efforts and benefits
 claims that there is no universal truth.
 it considers the background details of a moral situation to support the particular needs and
interests of the weak communities and it also considers the contextual details of each place such
as the local customs and traditions, culture, economy, history and so forth.
 it emphasized the importance of human relationships and emotions from virtues like compassion,
sympathy, concern, friendship, reconciliation, and sensitivity
 sometimes called “Ethics of Love” or “Relational Ethics” which has several notable characteristics:
i. Emotions as the Essential Human Nature
 Traditional ethics is made upon the dominance of reason.
 Reason – is valued as an established faculty of mind over emotion.
 Emotion – is viewed as unstable, changeable, short-lived, and less
important.
 while care ethics recognizes the value of reason, it acknowledges the meaning of
feeling or emotion and related virtues.
ii. Prioritization of Human Relations
 traditional theories concentrate on establishing abstract, universal rules and
principles in consideration or neutrality. Yet in human life, not all human
relationships are equal
 in care ethics, knows the value of limited impartiality and patronization of human
relationships.
iii. Family as the unit of Society
 traditional ethics function in a structure formed by the relationship among
individuals and society.
 Primary ethical concepts like justice, universality, impartiality and duty are all in
this structure. The Family does not play any specific role in this structure.
  in contrast, the ethics of care considers the family as the primary and morally
sphere in which to understand ethical behavior because it is the place where
virtues are cultivated and inherited.
iv. Interdependency of a Person
 In traditional ethical theories, a person is viewed as independent, isolated,
rational and self-interested.
 In care ethics however, sees a person as interdependent, integral having emotion,
reason, and will, and relational. It argues that the idea of self can be correctly
defined just when the person is recognized as interdependent and rational being.

On Writing Codes of Right Conduct

Important Purposes:

1. Compliance
 Legislation mandates individuals serving on boards and organizational leaders of public
offices to implement codes or clearly explain why they have not.
2. Marketing
 A code serves as public statement of what the company promised to stand for and its
commitment to high standards and right conduct.
3. Risk Mitigation
 organizations with codes of ethics can trim down the financial risks connected with
government fines for ethical wrongdoing by signifying they have made a “good faith
effort” to avoid unlawful acts.

Inclusion in a Code of Right Conduct

Guidelines for writing an ethics code:

1. Be plain about the objectives that the code is planned to achieved.

2. Obtain support and ideas for the code from all levels of the organization.
3. Be conscious of the most recent developments in the laws and regulations that
concern the industry where the organization belongs.
4. Write as plainly and undoubtedly as possible. Keep away from legal terminology and
clear generalities.
5. Act in response to real-life questions and situations.
6. Supply resources for additional information and guidelines.
7. In all its forms, make it user-friendly since ultimately a code is a failure if it is not
applied.

Most common sections to include in a code of right conduct are:

1. ethical principles –workplace behavior and respect for all people

2. values – an honest, unbiased and unprejudiced work environment
 3. accountability – taking responsibility for own actions, ensuring appropriate use of
information, exercising diligence and duty of care obligations and avoiding conflicts
of interest
4. standard of conduct – complying with the job description, commitment to the
organization and proper computer, internet and email usage
5. standard of practice – current policies and procedures and business operational
manual
6. disciplinary action – complaints handling and specific penalties for any violation of the
code.

Provisions of the Code

Code Provisions

 are the exact standards of behavior and performance expectations that an organization
selects to emphasize and tackle in the code.
 can be short or comprehensive based on the objective
 deal with a broad range of issues, varying from legal and regulatory concerns, to relations
with the organization’s stakeholders and the application of the organization’s values.
 informs employees which behaviors are not acceptable in the organization, so they can
stick to standards and are allowed to speak their mind if wrongdoing happens

The preference of topics to be part of the code will be influenced by three factors namely:

1. The code’s purpose and objectives;

2. The organization’s overall purpose and objectives; and
3. The questions or concerns expressed by the intended users who are employees and
stakeholders.

In settling on which topics to concentrate on, the following issues could be raise which are:

1. the primary laws and regulations relevant to the organization

2. mistakes in the past
3. other mistakes done in the past
4. guidance needed to offer to employees and
5. the gray areas that requires clarification or confirmation

Common provisions found in organizational codes which not comprehensive, nor are the category
headings definitive:

1. Compliance, Integrity and Anti-corruption

a. Accuracy of corporate financed and financial reporting
b. employee records and expense reports
c. Bribes
d. Political contributions
2. Conflicts of Interest
a. Gifts and gratuities
 b. Political activity
c. Outside employment
d. Family members
e. Disclosure of Financial interests
3. Employee, Client and Vend or Information
a. maintaining records and information
b. Privacy and confidentiality
c. Disclosure of information
4. Employment Practices
a. Workplace harassment
b. Equal opportunity
c. Diversity
d. Fair Treatment of staff
e. Work-family balance
f. Discrimination
g. Fair labor practices
h. Illegal drugs and alcohol
i. Use of organizational property and resources
j. Proper exercise of authority
k. Employee volunteer activities
l. Romantic relationship with co-workers
m. Incentives and recognition systems
5. Environmental Issues
a. Commitment to the sustainability
b. Employee health and safety
6. Ethics and Compliance Resources
a. Ethics advice helpline
b. Reporting procedures
c. Anonymous/confidential reporting hotline
d. Summary of investigation process
e. Anti-retaliation policy and protections for reporters
f. Accountability and discipline for violators
g. Ombuds program
7. Internet, Social networking and Social media
a. Internet and social network use at work
b. Prohibited sites and content
c. policies regarding posts about company, work products or co-workers
d. Online relationships between managers and their reports
8. Relationships with third parties
a. Procurement
b. Negotiating Contracts

Reference:
Business Ethics and Social Responsibilities
Angelita Ong Camilar-Serrano –DBA, Candidate