Why Business Is Not an Oxymoron?
WHY BUSINESS ETHICS IS NOT AN OXYMORON?
NOTION: In an attempt to answer the subject matter, it is then imperative to settle first an understanding of what ‘business’ and ‘ethics’ is as independent from each other and what is ‘business ethics’ as a whole.
1.0 Technical definition of terms
1.1 Business – an organization involved in the trade of goods, services or both to consumers. It may be privately owned and administered, or state owned to provide service to its customers generally for profit except for non-profit organizations.
1.2 Ethics – also known as moral philosophy, a branch of philosophy that involves systemizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
1.3 Oxymoron – a figure of speech that uses seeming contradictions.
2.0 Business and Ethics independent from each other
Business alone only suggests activities to earn a substantial profit. If an entrepreneur just simply thinks about the income or proceeds he can accumulate, he will pay less attention as to how he can attain it, whether it is unethical or moral.
Ethics detached to any human undertakings is just an ideal that will fall on deaf ears. Ethics without application is a dead law.
3.0 Business and Ethics Harmonized
“The success of our systems has the moral foundation of how we treat each other, the spirit of benevolence, of service, of contribution. If we ignore the moral foundation and allow economic systems to operate without moral foundation and without continued education, we will soon create an amoral, if not immoral, society and business.” (Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith)
To Adam Smith, every business transaction is a moral challenge to see that both parties come out fairly. Fairness and benevolence in business are the bedrock of the free enterprise system called capitalism. Our economic system comes out of a constitutional democracy where minority rights are to be attended to as well. The
NOTION: In an attempt to answer the subject matter, it is then imperative to settle first an understanding of what ‘business’ and ‘ethics’ is as independent from each other and what is ‘business ethics’ as a whole.
1.0 Technical definition of terms
1.1 Business – an organization involved in the trade of goods, services or both to consumers. It may be privately owned and administered, or state owned to provide service to its customers generally for profit except for non-profit organizations.
1.2 Ethics – also known as moral philosophy, a branch of philosophy that involves systemizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
1.3 Oxymoron – a figure of speech that uses seeming contradictions.
2.0 Business and Ethics independent from each other
Business alone only suggests activities to earn a substantial profit. If an entrepreneur just simply thinks about the income or proceeds he can accumulate, he will pay less attention as to how he can attain it, whether it is unethical or moral.
Ethics detached to any human undertakings is just an ideal that will fall on deaf ears. Ethics without application is a dead law.
3.0 Business and Ethics Harmonized
“The success of our systems has the moral foundation of how we treat each other, the spirit of benevolence, of service, of contribution. If we ignore the moral foundation and allow economic systems to operate without moral foundation and without continued education, we will soon create an amoral, if not immoral, society and business.” (Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith)
To Adam Smith, every business transaction is a moral challenge to see that both parties come out fairly. Fairness and benevolence in business are the bedrock of the free enterprise system called capitalism. Our economic system comes out of a constitutional democracy where minority rights are to be attended to as well. The