Business Ethics Summary
Business Ethics Summary Chapter 1 -‐ 5
Chapter 1: Introducing Business Ethics Business Ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of (morally) right and wrong are addressed.
-‐ Overlap between ethics and law. Law is essentially an institutionalization or codification of ethics into specific social rules etc. -‐ Law might be said to be a definition of the minimum acceptable standards of behavior. -‐ However, many morally contestable issues not explicitly covered by law (e.g. no law that forbids you to cheat on your partner, or no law that prevents you selling weapons to oppressive regimes…) -‐ Business ethics begin where law ends, concerned with issues not covered by law or where there is no consensus whether right or wrong -‐ Many questions pose in business ethics are equivocal(no definite right or wrong) -‐ Study business ethics to make better decisions -‐ Morality: concerned with norms, values, beliefs embedded in social processes which define right and wrong for an individual Ethics: rationalization of morality. And concerned with study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right or
Chapter 1: Introducing Business Ethics Business Ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of (morally) right and wrong are addressed.
-‐ Overlap between ethics and law. Law is essentially an institutionalization or codification of ethics into specific social rules etc. -‐ Law might be said to be a definition of the minimum acceptable standards of behavior. -‐ However, many morally contestable issues not explicitly covered by law (e.g. no law that forbids you to cheat on your partner, or no law that prevents you selling weapons to oppressive regimes…) -‐ Business ethics begin where law ends, concerned with issues not covered by law or where there is no consensus whether right or wrong -‐ Many questions pose in business ethics are equivocal(no definite right or wrong) -‐ Study business ethics to make better decisions -‐ Morality: concerned with norms, values, beliefs embedded in social processes which define right and wrong for an individual Ethics: rationalization of morality. And concerned with study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right or