Law and Reflective Ethics

Business Ethics
Exam 1 Essay Questions

Question #1
The ideal relationship between law and reflective ethics in a properly ordered society is that they are similar in that they both require the same behavior up until a minimal point of the law, when it is the duty of the government to leave the moral decision up to the individual. It is a moral standard that law be kept to a minimum. This is because even though the government wants to protect us, they do not want to limit us and infringe on other rights we may have. An example that demonstrates how reflective ethics and law differ would be the laws imposed on Germans by the Third Reich of Hitler. By law, people were forced to perform acts considered morally wrong. The legal obligations and the moral obligations of the German people conflicted. An example of what reflective ethics and law share in common would be laws that prohibit acts such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. Laws protect the human rights that all humans are entitled to have. Law and ethics are not the same, laws change from area to area, as ethics are a universal behavior code. In an ideal society laws are not to require that people go against their moral standards, but should overlap with human moral standards. Then, when a point is reached outside the reaches of the law, reflective ethics emerges and is the sole responsibility of the individual to be upheld.
Question 2

Conventional morality and reflective ethics differ in a few very important
Ways. "Conventional morality is the raw material to be perfected by reflective
Ethics." What this means is that conventional morality is only a set of moral beliefs that we uphold which was given to us by peers, adults, and the people that surround us, but reflective ethics is the ability we have to make our own moral decisions and judge our own moral issues for ourselves. Conventional ethics is a code put together from the examples set forth by the society around us. An adolescent who is at this level is able to put his/herself in the position of others, but is still close minded in that the individual thinks in terms of what their peers think, family values, and legal obligations, as opposed to self concluded decisions. An example of this would be how an adolescent male driver, using conventional morality, drives slow when first getting his license because he does not want to get a speeding ticket because his parents would be mad with him if he did. This is different than the individual who drives responsibly because they realize the danger present for themselves and the welfare of others.

Question 3

To figure out whether interior secretary Gale Norton should have withheld water from the Kalmath Basin last year using the standard of utility, you must list all the benefits and costs of each option. You must pick the option that best maximizes the benefits, and minimizes the costs. So you would list all the benefits of the water being withheld, and then the costs. Then, list all the benefits of leaving the water supply alone along with all the costs. Whichever choice utilizes the resources yielding the most beneficial result for society should be chosen.

Question 4

Moral rights are rights that all humans are entitled to. The people suffering from river blindness disease are entitled to the same human rights as all other humans. The right to not suffer is put in effect in this situation, as an entire people are afflicted with the disease. When these people are born there is good chance that they will loose their eyesight later in life. As humans, it is our moral obligation to help the suffering. The rights of Merck must be taken into account as well. Moral rights require humans to come to the aid of other humans when needed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Jones, Carol, Krizan, Merrier. et. Al. Business Communication. Philidelphia, 2001

Bibliography: Jones, Carol, Krizan, Merrier. et. Al. Business Communication. Philidelphia, 2001