Chap 1 Understanding Ethics

27/01/2024
BUSINESS ETHICS
PHAN VŨ NGỌC LAN – MDE

International Business
Administration Department
lanpvn@st.huflit.edu.vn
Chapter 1
Understanding
Ethics
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not
be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
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Learning Outcomes
• Define ethics
• Explain the role of values in ethical decision
making
• Understand opposing ethical theories and their
limitations
• Discuss ethical relativism
• Explain an ethical dilemma and apply a process
to resolve it
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not 1-3
“Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of

doing the right thing when that will cost more than
we want to pay”
The Josephson Institute of Ethics
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Copyright © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Ethics
• The manner by
which we try to live our lives
according to a standard of
“right” or “wrong” behavior—
in both how we think and
behave toward others and
how we would like them to
think and behave toward us.
Ethics (continued)
• Factors that influence ethics
• One's upbringing
• One’s religion
• One's social traditions and beliefs
• Society: Structured community of people
bound together by similar traditions and
customs
• Culture: A particular set of attitudes, beliefs,
and practices that characterize a group of
individuals.
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Understanding Right and Wrong

• Moral standards - Principles by which
judgments are made about good and bad
behavior based on:
• Religious beliefs
• Cultural beliefs
• Culture: Particular set of attitudes, beliefs, and
practices that characterize a group of individuals
• Philosophical beliefs

(continued)
• Sources of beliefs
• Family and friends
• Ethnic background
• Religion
• School
• Media
• Personal role models and mentors
• Morality - Collection of influences built over a
person’s lifetime
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• Developing your own ‘Moral Compass’
• How Should I live?
• The Value of a Value – intrinsic; instrumental
• Value Conflicts
• Doing The Right Thing
• The Golden Rule – Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you
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How Should One Live?

• Standards of ethical behavior are absorbed by
osmosis as you observe the examples set by
everyone around you.
• Ethical behavior can be based on experience of
human existence rather than any abstract
concepts of right and wrong
• Morals and values - Set of personal principles
by which one aims to live one’s life
• Value system: Set of personal principles
formalized into a code of behavior
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not1-10
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Value of a Value
• Intrinsic values/goods: Quality by which a
value/a good is a good thing in itself (inherent
value)
• Pursued for its own sake, whether anything
comes from that pursuit or not
• Extrinsic/Instrumental values/goods: Quality
by which the pursuit of one value/one good is a
good way to reach another value/another good
(what they are “good” for)
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Value Conflicts
• Impact of a value system on
individuals can be seen in the
extent to which their daily lives are
influenced by those values
• Personal value system - Specific
choices and responses to a
situation by an individual
• a situation that places one’s value
system in direct conflict with an
action => the greatest test of any
personal value system
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not1-13
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Doing the Right Thing

• Categories under which individuals classify
ethics
1. Simple truth —right and wrong or good and
bad => simply doing the right thing.
2. A question of someone’s personal character—
his or her integrity as demonstrated by
behavior
3. Rules of appropriate individual behavior
4. Rules of appropriate behavior for a community
or society
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The Golden Rule

• Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you
• Problem with the rule is the assumption that
others would follow the same principles as one
would do
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The Golden Rule

• Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you
yourself would find hurtful.”—Udana-Varga
5:18
• • Christianity: “Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them.”—Matthew 7:12
• • Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do
naught
• unto others which would cause you pain if
done to you.”—Mahabharata 5:1517
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Ethical Theories
The Ethics of Bentham Universal ethics: Ethics

and Mill: Utilitarianism as Duty
Ethical
theories
The Ethics of Aristotle:
Virtue Theory/Virtue Social contract theory
ethics
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The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

Utilitarianism: strengths & limitations
Utilitarianism
assesses an
action’s ethics
based on its
consequences.
(Managing Business Ethics Making Ethical Decisions -

by Alfred A. Marcus, Timothy J. Hargrave_1st Ed-
SAGE-2020
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p35)
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Defining Good and Bad Consequences

• Consequentialist theories define “good” and
“bad” consequences in many different ways.
• The word good is used in different contexts: a
good meal, a good job, a good feeling, and so
on.
• The ancient Greeks (Plato, Protagoras, Aristotle)
distinguished intrinsic goods from extrinsic
goods.
• Examples of forms of consequentialism:
Whether actions achieve ends such as human
survival or liberty or not? 1-26
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Utilitarianism: strengths
• Utilitarianism: Ethical choices that offer the
greatest good for the greatest number of people:
Total utility of all
• Utilitarian advice for ethical action/choice:
select that action with the greatest amount of
good for the greatest number of people
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Utilitarianism: strengths
• => Emphasis on the outcome of ethical decision
=> utilitarianism is classified as a
consequentialist theory.
• => Pleasure comes from maximizing values
such as freedom, knowledge, justice, friendship,
love, and beauty, and not bodily pleasures alone.
• => Building durable organizations challenging
people to learn, grow, and fulfill their intrinsic
human needs to flourish.
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Utilitarianism: limitations (criticism)
• Can the ends justify the means? With emphasis on
the greater good => utilitarian decisions violate
basis respect to people’s fundamental rights (what
are they?).
• Difficult to define and calculate the consequences
of an action
• Human limited capacity in foretelling the
consequences
• Who decides? (may have conflicts of interests and
biases)
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Utilitarianism: example: limitations
• At the public policy level: cost–benefit analysis
• At the corporate level: financial measures (such
as ROI, the “bottom line” of profit) to calculate
how much wealth an action would produce.
• => fail to identify specific stakeholder impacts.
(ex. Layoff, low salary)
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Universal ethics/Deontology:
Ethics as Duty
Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth-century philosopher, now associated with deontology, who spent nearly all his
professional life teaching at the university in Königsberg (which today is Kaliningrad, the westernmost point in Russia).
(credit right: modification of “Kant foto” by “Becker”/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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Ethics as Duty
• Universal ethics: Actions that are taken out of
duty and obligation to a purely moral ideal
rather than based on the needs of the
situation
• Universal principles are seen to apply to
everyone, everywhere, all the time
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Ethics as Duty
• The end results are less important than the
actions. There may be actions you should not
pursue no matter how worthy the goal.
• Basic rights and duties (what are they?), what
we ought to do regardless of the
consequences.
• Whereas utilitarianism is associated with the
overall good, deontology prioritizes the right
over the good.
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Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Strengths
• Addresses one of the main problems of
utilitarianism (Reverse of the weakness in ethics
for the greater good): it seems to permit doing
tremendous harm to some if offsetting benefits
for others.
• Emphasis on taking the right action is found in
many of the world’s great religions.
• Buddhism’s Noble eightfold path and its
adage “hurt not others with that which pains
yourself ”.
• The ten Commandments and the Judeo-Christian
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“Golden Rule”
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Strengths
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Strengths
• 1st formulation: Based on a principle that “could
become a universal law.” (universally accepted
duties and obligations) “Would you be willing to live
in a world where everyone behaved in this
manner?”
• 2nd formulation: Should treat others as ends not
merely as means to our ends => Repect others =>
Rational human beings => have the basis right to be
treated with respect. The essence of our freedom:
we are not governed by pain and pleasure but by
reasons.
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Strengths
• 3rd formulation:
Demand the highest
conduct of ourselves
and live our lives as
examples to others. “Everybody is
=> when doing corrupt” and
business among therefore “I have
unethical individuals, no choice?”
what is the duty of
companies?
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Strengths
the U.S. Declaration of
Independence holds “these
truths to be selfevident . . .
that all men are created equal
. . . they are endowed by their
Creator with certain alienable
rights . . . among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.”
The French Revolution (like the American one) was fought for principles
similar to those espoused by Immanuel Kant.
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Limitations
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Limitations
• Kantian approach of applying simple moral
rules to ethical decision-making applies only to
simple circumstances and that complex, ethical
decision-making demands customized,
contextual, imaginative decisionmaking.
•
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Virtue Theory/Virtue ethics
Nicomachean Ethics, by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (a), is a rough Penelope and Odysseus in a scene from Homer’s Odyssey, as
collection of Aristotle’s lecture notes to his students on how to live the depicted in 1802 by the German painter Johann Tischbein. For
virtuous life and achieve happiness; it is the oldest surviving treatment of the ancient Greeks, Penelope represented all the virtues of a
ethics in the West. The collection was possibly named after Aristotle’s son. loving, dutiful partner. She remained faithful to her husband
This 1566 edition (b) was printed in both Greek and Latin. (credit a: Odysseus despite his absence of some twenty years during and
modification of “Aristotle Altemps Inv8575,” by “Jastrow”/Wikimedia after the Trojan War. (credit: “Odysseus and Penelope” by H.
Commons, Public Domain; credit b: modification of “Aristotelis De Moribus ad R. Wacker and James Steakley/Wikimedia Commons, Public
Nicomachum” by "Aavindraa"/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) Domain)
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What sort of person would I like to become?

How do I go about becoming that person?
• Khổng Mạnh CƯƠNG

THƯỜNG tu khắc cốt
• Tây Âu khoa học yếu
minh tâm .
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The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

Theory/Virtue ethics
• The ancient Greeks stressed that through the
consistent practice of acting virtuously our
characters become virtuous.
• Repeat an action enough, and it becomes
characteristic of your being.
• The honest person becomes honest by being
honest again and again.
• The courageous person becomes courageous by
acting courageously again and again.
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• Virtue ethics: A concept of living your life
according to a commitment to the achievement
of a clear ideal—what sort of person would I like
to become, and how do I go about becoming
that person?
• An ethical system based on the exercise of
certain virtues (loyalty, honor, courage)
emphasizing the formation of character
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Theory
• What constitutes a virtue in the first place,

according to Aristotle?
• Besides courage, the virtues include wisdom,
kindness, love, beauty, honesty, and justice.
• These approximate the same virtues proclaimed
by Plato 1-47
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• Virtue ethics provides a means of identifying
actions that reconcile the tension between
deontology and utilitarianism.
• => seeks a position that is consistent with
Kantian principles and also sensitive to
consequences.
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Theory/Virtue ethics - Limitations
• Criticism - Societies can place different
emphasis on different virtues
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Summary of ethical theories

• Utilitarianism: Making Decisions Based on
Ethical Consequences
• Universal ethics/Deontology: An Ethics of
Principles and Rights
• Virtue Ethics: Making Decisions Based on
Integrity and Character
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• Triết lý giáo dục

Mưu cầu hạnh phúc và tự do dựa trên nền
tảng đạo đức và trí tuệ
• Giá trị văn hóa:
TỬ TẾ – HỌC TẬP
• Khẩu hiệu hành động:
CHÍNH TRỰC – HỢP TÁC – TRÁCH NHIỆM
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Social Contract Theory:

Justice and Fairness
• Like deontology, contract theory is concerned with rights
and obligations.
• What is different about contract theory, however, is that
it focuses on the arrangements by which actors agree to
these rights and obligations.
• Contractarians are concerned with making the basic
structure of society, for example, its legal and political
systems, as fair as possible.
• Enlightenment philosophers such as Rousseau argue,
people would knowingly and voluntarily enter into a
social contract, a set of rules that would preserve the
basic freedoms and security of all.
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Ethical Relativism
Are you an ethical relativist?
• An important perspective within the philosophical
study of ethics, which holds that ethical values
and judgments are ultimately dependent
upon/relative (connected) to, one’s culture,
society, or personal feelings.
• Relativism denies that we can make rational or
objective ethical judgments.
• Do you believe that there is no way to decide
what is ethically right or wrong?
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Ethical Relativism
• Concept that the traditions of one’s society,
one’s personal opinions, and the circumstances
of the present moment define one’s ethical
principles
• Implies some degree of flexibility as opposed to
strict black-and-white rules
• Offers the comfort of being a part of the ethical
majority in the community or society
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Ethical Relativism
Religious ethics vs. Phylosophical ethics
• Religious ethics: explains human well-being in
religious terms.
Ex. “you should contribute to disaster relief
because God commands it, or because it will bring
you heavenly rewards”
• Phylosophical ethics: provides justifi cations that
must be applicable to all people regardless of their
religious starting points. Connects the “oughts” and
“shoulds” of ethics to an underlying account of
human well-being.
• Ex. “you should contribute to disaster relief
because it will reduce human suf ering”
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Ethical Dilemmas
• Situations in which
there are no obvious
right or wrong
decisions, but rather a
right or right answers
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Ethical Dilemmas
• Occur when the decision one must make requires one
to make a right choice knowing full well that one is:
• Leaving an equally right choice undone
• Likely to suffer something bad as a result of that
choice
• Contradicting a personal ethical principle in
making that choice
• Abandoning an ethical value of one’s community
or society in making that choice
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Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

• Sleep-test ethics
• Ethics of intuition
• Individuals should rely on their personal
insights, feelings, and instincts when facing a
difficult problem
• Process for solving an ethical problem
• Arthur Dobrin’s questions
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Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – I

Ethical theories & traditions
1. Step One: Analyze the consequences.
2. Step Two: Analyze the actions: Duties, rights,
principles
3. Step Three: Implications for personal integrity
and character
4. Step Four: Make a decision.
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Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – II

1.
Arthur Dobrin’s questions
What are the facts?
2. What can you guess about the facts you don’t know?
3. What do the facts mean?
4. What does the problem look like through the eyes of the
people involved?
5. What will happen if you choose one thing rather than
another?
6. What do your feelings tell you?
7. What will you think of yourself if you decide one thing or
another?
8. Can you explain and justify your decision to others?
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Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – II

Arthur Dobrin’s questions
• Application of Arthur Dobrin’s model is based
on the following key assumptions:
• Sufficient time is there for the degree of
contemplation that such questions require
• Enough information is available to answer the
questions
• Dilemma presents alternative resolutions for
one to select from
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Ethical Reasoning
• Looking at the information available while
resolving an ethical dilemma
• Drawing conclusions based on that information
in relation to one’s own ethical standards
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Figure 1.1 - Lawrence Kohlberg’s

Stages of Ethical Reasoning
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Ethical Reasoning
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development:
Level 1: Pre-Conventional:
Stage 1: Punishment & Obedience Orientation

Stage 2: Individualism, Instrumentalism, & Exchange
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Ethical Reasoning
Level 2: Conventional:
Stage 3: “Good Boy-Nice Girl” Orientation

Stage 4: Law & Order Orientation
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Ethical Reasoning
Level 3: Post-Conventional:
Stage 5: Social-Contract Legalistic Orientation

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation
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CASE STUDY
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR LISTENING
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27/01/2024

PHAN VŨ NGỌC LAN – MDE

“Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of

The Josephson Institute of Ethics

Understanding Right and Wrong

Understanding Right and Wrong

Understanding Right and Wrong

How Should One Live?

Doing the Right Thing

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule

The Ethics of Bentham Universal ethics: Ethics

The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

(Managing Business Ethics Making Ethical Decisions -

Defining Good and Bad Consequences

The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

The Ethics of Bentham and Mill:

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Universal ethics: Ethics as Duty

Virtue Theory/Virtue ethics

What sort of person would I like to become?

• Khổng Mạnh CƯƠNG

The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

• What constitutes a virtue in the first place,

The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

The Ethics of Aristotle: Virtue

Summary of ethical theories

• Triết lý giáo dục

Social Contract Theory:

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – I

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – II

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas – II

Figure 1.1 - Lawrence Kohlberg’s

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development:

Stage 1: Punishment & Obedience Orientation

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development:

Stage 3: “Good Boy-Nice Girl” Orientation

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development:

Stage 5: Social-Contract Legalistic Orientation

THANK YOU FOR YOUR LISTENING

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