Analysing Different Ethical Theories Philosophy Essay

Analysing Different Ethical Theories Philosophy Essay morals may be viewed as the study of human c each for with an emphasis on determination of ripe(p) and wrong (Fraedrich and Ferrell, 1992). Together with this, it is the assumption that management essential adhere to a narrow version of profitableness that excludes every reference to intention (Ghoshal, 2005). According to (M every last(predicate)or et al., 2010), for centuries, religious and secular scholars receive explored the meaning of human beingly concern and attempted to define a good life. Ethical theories and principles ar the foundations of estimable analysis because they argon the viewpoints from which counselor-at-law can be obtained along the pathway to a finish. The four ethical theories according to the text be rights theory, justice theory, utilitarianism, and profit maximation.The rights theory covers a range of ethical philosophies that holds that certain human rights are burning(prenominal) and must be respected by other society and her rights. Rights are in any case considered to be ethically correct and legitimate given that a large or ruling population endorses them. Few rights theorists are stringent deontologists, and i of the few is the 18th century philosopher by name Immanuel Kant and his theory is existn as the Kantianism. Kant viewed humans as moral actors that are free to make choices and he also believed that humans are able to judge the morality of any action by applying his famous mo nononous imperative. One of his formulations of the categorical imperative is Act only on that maxim whereby at the same time you can forget that it shall be recognise a universal law. The meaning of it is that we judge an action by applying it universally. The most important saturation of rights theory is that it protects fundamental rights, unless some greater right takes precedence. A major criticism of the rights theory bridge player with the near absolute yet relativ e think of of the rights protected, making it difficult to articulate and administer a comprehensive rights theory.The Justice theory which came into limelight by John Rawls in 1971 when he published his earmark entitled A theory of Justice, the philosophical underpinning for the bureaucratic wel out-of-the-way(prenominal)e state. He reasoned that it was right for governments to distribute wealth in purchase order to assist the poor and the destitute. Further more(prenominal), Rawls expressed this philosophy in his Greatest compeer Liberty Principle apiece person has an equal right to basic rights and liberties. He further check the principle with the Difference Principle kind inequalities are acceptable only if they cannot be eliminated without making the worst-off configuration even worse off. Rawlss justice theory has application in the moving in context which requires decision makers to be guided by fairness and impartiality. The strength of Rawlss justice theory lies in its basic premise, the protection of those who are least advantaged in society. The ethical dilemma for managers is to determine the fair blueprints and procedures for distributing outcomes to stakeholders. Managers must not give mickle they like bigger raises than they give to stack they do not like, for example, or bend the rules to help their favorites. On the other hand, if employees want managers to act fairly toward them, then employees need to act fairly toward their companies and work hard-fought and be loyal. Similarly, customers need to act fairly toward a ac club if they expect it to be fair to them-something people who illegally copy digital media should consider. The criticism that justice theory with the rights theory is that it treats equality as an absolute, without examining the be of producing equality, including reduced incentives for innovation, entrepreneurship and production.Utilitarianism entails a decision maker to maximize utility for society as a w hole. maximising utility means achieving the highest level of felicitys over dissatis factions which means that a person must consider the benefits and cost of her actions to everyone in society. A utilitarian will take action only if the benefits of the action to society overbalance the societal costs of the action. There are two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism judges each act separately, assessing a single acts benefit and its cost to societys members. Rule utilitarianism judges actions by a rule that over the long run maximizes benefits over cost. The strength of utilitarianism as a guide for ethical conduct is that it is easy to articulate the standard of conduct which coincides with values of most modern countries like the USA who is capitalistic in nature by focusing on total social satisfactions, benefits, wealth and welfare. In ecumenic under capitalism, the interests of shareholders are put above those of employees , so production will move abroad. This is generally regarded as being an ethical choice because in the long run, the alternative, domestic production might cause the business to collapse and go bankrupt. If this happens, all of the companys stakeholders will suffer-not just its employees. According to the utilitarian view, the decision that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people is best. In this case, that means outsourcing the jobs. The criticism of utilitarianism is that it is difficult to measure ones own pleasures, pains, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, let alone those of all of societys members.Profit maximization as an ethical theory requires a decision maker to maximize a businesss long-run profits within the limits of the law. This has been based on the laissez faire theory of capitalism first expressed by Adam Smith in the 18th century and more belatedly promoted by economists such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Profit maximization is closely related to utilitarianism, but it varies essentially in how ethical decisions are made. Profit maximization optimizes total social utility by confining the actors focus, requiring the decision maker to make a decision that merely maximizes profits for himself or his governing body. The strengths of profit maximization results in ethical conduct because it requires societys members to act within the constraints of the law and a profit maximizer, therefore, acts ethically by complying with societys mores as expressed in its laws. The criticism of profit maximizer is that if profit maximization results in an efficient parcelling of societys resources and maximization of total social welfare, it does not concern itself with how wealth is allocated within Society.An ethical theory that was not found in the text is that of rationalism, which this ethical theory focuses mainly on norms. The moral rationalism is that in which the decisive factor of the truth is not sensory but intellec tual and deductive, and it has its major proponent in Emmanuel Kant (Llano, 2002). Mr. Kant attempted to change our everyday, clear, rational knowledge of morality into philosophical knowledge. He went after a technique of using practical reason to reach conclusions which are able to be useful to the world of experience. Kant is also known for his theory that there is a single moral obligation which he called the Categorical Imperative, and derived from the knowledge of duty. He further stated that these moral norms must be obeyed in all situations and circumstances if our demeanour is to observe the moral law.In a way to rectify corporate governance and corporate social responsibilities, according to Mallor et al., 2010, one can modify the corporate governance model to educate, motivate, and supervise executives and thereby improve corporate social responsibility. Corporate governance is the structure used to direct and manage business and personal business of the company towa rds enhancing prosperity and corporate accountability. Corporate critics however did propose a wide rang of cures, all of which lead been implemented to some degree and with varying degrees of success.Ethical codes Ethic codes in a way wealthy person been adopted by many large companys and several industries to guide executives and other employees. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act required that a humans company discloses whether it has adopted a code of ethics for senior financial officers, and to disclose any changes in the code or waiver of the codes application. The codes can be viewed in two ways one sees the codes as genuine efforts to foster ethical port within a firm or an attention while others view regards them as thinly disguised attempts to make the firm function better, to mislead the public into believing the firm behaves ethically, to prevent the passage of legislation that would impose stricter constraints on business, or to limit rival under the veil of ethical standard s. Better ethical codes make clear that the corporation expects employees not to pique the law in a mistaken belief that loyalty to the corporation requires it. These kinds of codes work best, however, when a corporation also gives its employees an outlet for dealing with a superiors request to do an unethical act.Ethical instruction approximately corporate organizations require their employees to enroll in classes that teach ethical decision-making. The idea is that a manager practised in ethical conduct will recognize unethical actions before they are taken and deter herself and the corporation from the unethical acts. Majority of corporations in this present day express their dedication to ethical decision-making by an ethics officer who is not only responsible for ethical instruction, but also in inject of ethical supervision. The ethics officer tends to be a mentor or sounding board for all employees who face ethical issues.Greater Shareholder Role in Corporations As shareh olders are the vital stakeholders in a corporation in a capitalist economy, several corporate critics argue that businesses should be more attuned to shareholders ethical values and that shareholder control of the board of directors and executives should be increased.Evidence suggests that sources of ethical dilemmas will relate to increase. To understand this assessment, it will be useful to look at four categories of conditions influencing ethical behavior global, social, organisational and individual.Global A variety of global conditions affect our lives and our society many are well-known to all of us. They include the increasing influence of cultural values substantially different from those of our Anglo-Saxon heritage impacts of a complex global economy on local economic structures and our rapidly increasing technological message to communicate and interact with the global community. Within the past few years we have watched the beginning of the growth of a new world order that will be substantially different from our sense of world order developed over the last half century. Among the implications resulting from this picture, two are especially important (1) we as a people no longer have a secure sense of our role in the world or our control over it and (2) it has become increasingly acceptable, and even logical, to admit that we simply dont know what the appropriate response is. This era of rapid change has an indirect but important influence on our sense of ethical appropriateness.Social A more direct source of ethical conflicts is social change. trade has been so rapid that some have argued that we have lost our sense of values or that we must test better mechanisms to resolve value conflicts. This line of reasoning is incorrect for several reasons. First, value conflicts (and, therefore, ethical dilemmas) reflect our social and cultural fabric. Second, stakeholders have a relatively easy time gaining access to our indemnity making system there fore, value conflicts are very visible and, frequently, cause our problem-solving process to forge slow, vexatious compromises. These processes continue to represent one of the great comparative advantages of our society and should not be changed without sober reflection.organisational Thirdly, we are witnessing rapid change in the nature and role of the public organization and concepts about administrative behavior. Organizational values are vital influence on the majority of us thus far our organizational lives are becoming increasingly participatory, open, communicative and interactive. While I believe that the decline of organization hierarchy is among the more positive aspects of our society, it also signals a decline in another source of behavioural guidelines. Individual judgment, group dynamics and social interactions are replacing traditional rules of behavior dictated by the organization. We are also facing increasing conflicts between the bureaucratic ethos and the democ ratic ethos (Hejka-Ekins, 1998). The bureaucratic ethos includes such traditional organizational standards as efficiency, competence, loyalty and accountability.Individual lastly, ethical anxieties are caused by changes at the individual level. In particular, individualism and materialism are at the present celebrated within major social institutions and have become a dominate ethos of the baby bust generation. Self-indulgence, greed, self-interest, and privatism are judge components of the ethos of this generation (Frederickson, 1982).In order to improve the ethical climate of an organization, management must effectively communicate proper ethical behavior throughout the organization. Wimbush and Shephard (1984 637-647) reported that businesses annually spend an estimated $40 billion on the ethical behavior problems. Thus, pointing to the fact that ethical dimension of employees behavior has a clear impact on the profitability of the company. It is generally accepted that customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors in successful business strategy. Although a company must continue to develop, alter and adapt products to keep pace with customers changing desires and preferences. It must also seek to develop long-term relationships with customers and its stakeholders. By focusing on customer satisfaction, a company continually deepens the customers dependance on the company, and as the customers confidence grows, the firm gains a better understanding of how to serve the customer so the relationship may endure. Successful businesses provide an opportunity for customer feedback, which can engage the customer in a cooperative problem solving. As is often pointed out, a happy customer will come back, but a disgruntled customer will tell others about his or her dissatisfaction with a company and discourage friends from dealing with it. When an organization has a sloshed ethical environment, it usually focuses on the core value of placing customers i nterest first. An ethical culture that focuses on customers incorporates the interests of all employees, suppliers, and other interested parties in decisions and actions. Employees working in an ethical environment support and contribute to the process of understanding customers demands and concerns. Ethical conduct towards customers builds a strong competitive position that has been shown to affect business performance and product innovation positively.