Chapter 1 1ETHICS AND | Course Paper

ETHICS AND ITS

CONCEPTUALIZATION

IN LIFE

1

BUSINESS ETHICS (SECOND EDITION)

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

❑Define and differentiate between ethics and morality

❑Describe how ethics is developed in an individual

❑List and explain the various factors that influence ethical values of

an individual

❑Compare and contrast ethics and legality

❑Compare and contrast Western and Eastern perspectives on ethics

critically

❑Relate the role of religion as a key contributing factor in shaping

ethical values in individuals

❑Identify universally accepted moral values

❑Recognize ethics and its importance in the global business world

Learning Outcomes

BUSINESS ETHICS (SECOND EDITION)

❑Ethics as a concept is different from morality.

❑Ethics is important in life, what more in business.

❑We can compare and contrast the concept of ethics from

Western and Eastern perspectives, and discuss the role of

religion in shaping one’s values.

❑We often reflect and ask ourselves some basic questions:

–How should I lead my life?

–What type of person should I strive to be?

–What values are critical for me to lead a rewarding life?

–What standards or principles should I follow to conduct my life?

Introduction

BUSINESS ETHICS (SECOND EDITION)

❑Our self-reflection and conscience in addressing these

personal issues immerses us in the study of right and wrong

or moral reasoning. Moral reasoning leads us to the study of

morality, i.e. ethics.

Introduction (cont.)

BUSINESS ETHICS (SECOND EDITION)

❑Ethics can be described as a set of ‘principles that contains

behavioural codes to determine what is right or wrong’

(Khalidah et al., 2012).

❑‘The term ethics is derived from the Greek word, ethos,

which means character, spirit and attitudes of a group of

people or culture’ (Rahman, 2003).

❑Ethics outlines the moral duty and obligations that any

human being should practise.

❑‘The values an individual uses to interpret whether any

particular action or behaviour is considered acceptable and

appropriate’ (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2009).

Ethics in Definition

BUSINESS ETHICS (SECOND EDITION)

❑Velasquez (2012) and Nickels (2008) regard ethics as a

‘discipline that examines one’s moral behaviour or the moral

standards of asociety’.

❑According to Abdullah and Zainol Abidin (2011), ethics

‘concerns itself with what is good or right in human

interaction’.It revolves around three central concepts: ‘self’,

‘good’ and ‘other’.

❑Ethics is also defined as ‘a critical analysis of human acts to

determine their rightness or wrongness in terms of two major

criteria⎯truth and justice’ (Mauro et al., 1999).

Ethics in Definition (cont.)

❑The study of ethics is normative.

❑However, different approaches are adopted from social

science fields such as anthropology, sociology and

psychology (Velasquez, 2012).

❑Although ethics is a normative endeavour as approached by

Normative versus Descriptive

Ethics