Ethical Theories. Punishments For Acting Unethically - Essay Example

Week Journal (PHI 445) Not-For-Profit Organization: UNITED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS For-Profit Organization: GOOGLE Reflection prompt # 1 Introduction Ethics (moral philosophy) involves systematization, defense, and recommending of the wrong or right concepts as rules of conduct that govern and are recognized by a particular culture. It would also refer to the system of moral principles that analyses and governs the conduct of individuals in the society taking into consideration their rightfulness or wrongfulness. In the corporate world, ethics would relate to the manner in which businesses conduct themselves in relation to societal moral principles. Every business should ensure that it conducts itself within the precepts of ethical standards available. Fieser and Moseley in their book, ‘Introduction to Business Ethics’ describes three fundamental theories in ethics under which businesses should be able to run their activities (Fieser & Moseley 4). 1. Summary of the ethical theories The first theory identified in the chapter is the theory of moral objectivism as championed by Plato - a Greek philosopher – who related morality to spiritual realities. This theory categorizes morality into three components, which are: morality is objective, moral standards are unchanging and moral standards are universal. According to the first category, moral standards exist in higher spirit realms completely distinct from the physical world and not creations of human beings or human societies. The second category perceives moral standards as eternal as they apply regardless of where one is on the world. This aspect doe not recognize changes in location or time as having effects on the moral standards practiced by human beings. The third category identifies the universality of moral standards as not considering issues such as race, gender, or even social status of individuals. Based on Plato’s views, the universe is two-tiered – lower physical level and higher spiritual level (realm of forms) and has nothing permanent on it. Moral standards also exist in a realm of forms that are highest. This appeal gives the sense of moral stability. The first theory is contrasted by the second theory – theory of moral relativism – having three features, as well including morality is not objective, moral standards change, and that the moral standards are not universal. The first feature categorizes moral standards as pure inventions by human beings while the last feature argues that the application of the moral standards depends on the preferences of individual human beings and not eternal truths. Defenders of this theory are skeptic of the existence of similar views as those of Plato’s higher realm of forms. The third theory is known as the divine command theory, which answers YES to the question whether God is the creator of moral values and standards. According to the theory, God creates the values based on no prior reasoning or logical standards but pronounced based on pure acts of will. However, this theory is faced by two main challenges. First, non-believers would reject the theory’s presumption on the existence of God. Furthermore, believers themselves hold on the belief of the existence of God from an aspect of personal faith and not having any absolute proof. Second, the moral standards if not based on any prior reasoning standards would imply that they are arbitrary having been made purely from scratch. 2. Constructing companies based on these theories In the business field, companies may be more motivated to act moral basing on the three theories above mainly on the desire to avoid tarnishing the name of the company, avoiding heavy fines and to avoid lawsuits. A company may choose to base their operations on one or all of the above theories. One significant approach by which companies can practice this is through the adoption of a utilitarianism theory of morality. A utilitarianism moral theory in normative ethics is based on the acknowledgment of an individual’s or company’s course of action based on the maximization of utility approach. The essential action of this approach is that based on the ‘greatest happiness principle’ and its most historical influencers and contributors were John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. The distinguishing factor for this moral theory is the concept of cost-benefit analysis, which notes that an action is only right morally when its consequences are more favorable than unfavorable to everybody. Therefore, for a company that seeks to maximize on its production based on this theory, the initial thing would be to enlist the bad and good consequences that might result from an action and decide the approach to take on. A good example is as given by Fieser & Moseley (10) on the tragedy that resulted from the Union Carbide incident in which the happiness of the company is maximized by having 600 – gal of chemical in the tank that is not properly guarded with appropriate safety measures at the expense of the threats the same exposed the general public to. While the cost-benefit analysis as may be adopted by a company only emphasizes on the aspect of assessing costs and benefits while considering the losses or gains expected from the same, a utilitarian approach if adopted by a company will seek to highlight on the effect the said actions would have on the happiness of a human being. Therefore, in most cases, the companies that practice this approach while seeking to maximize profits will first maximize utility from their actions. The kind of products such a company is likely to produce are those that of human consumption nature. If not so, then the company will be required according to this theory to put in place effective safety measures that will ensure that the production process of the products and even the products themselves do not pose harm to human beings. This would be the primary and acceptable moral standard. The company would be manufacturing these products if harmful by ensuring safety measures. If such a company is to become successful, then the best approach to use its resources would be to first attend to the utility needs of its employees and the general public through corporate social responsibility. This will see the company factor first the needs of the employees and the general public before considering that of maximizing profits. A case scenario for the practice of this moral act is as seen by the action of Union Carbide Company when it gets out remedying the effect of the chemical spill that led to the death of nearly 2,500 people (Fieser & Moseley 10). Generally, the application of utilitarianism naturally helps to morally assess the decisions it makes. Reflection prompt # 2 Punishments Corporations undergo for acting unethically Whenever a company engages in dishonest or unethical activities, there are several means by which the ruling government or law enforcement agency may punish it. The three main forms of such punishments include fines, corporate shaming and equity fines. These are as elaborately explained below. a. Fines: this is the most common type of punishment administered whenever a corporation commits an offence or breaks the law. Fines are usually imposed by having the corporation charged an amount that is likely to cripple its services so as to deter it from engaging in the same offence again in the future. When this occurs, while the same may deter the corporation from engaging in unethical means in the future, it may have other adverse effects as described above. b. Corporate shaming: this is a form of punishment that is applied to the sever and extreme ends on the corporation. This is applied by having the governing body require of the corporation to make a public statement denouncing the act it did. This in essence can be very embarrassing to the corporation and extremely disastrous to its reputation and those of its employees. The effect may be a resultant fleeing of customers from it to the competitive companies in the same field. Then eventually, the company is likely to record lower revenues hence, lower profits. By administering this form of punishment, the government is discouraging other companies or even the same company from engaging in such unethical activities again in future (Trevin?o & Katherine 82). c. Equity fines: this type of punishment is fairly similar to fines except that it affects the shares of the company traded. This form of punishment serves its purpose by lowering the market value of the corporation’s shares which can be important in the exchange market than the money itself. Thus, this hugely acts as a deterrent to the offending corporation to engage in unethical practices. Threats to running an ethical corporation a. Strategic misrepresentation: This is a practice in which a corporation blatantly withholds essential information that can be harmful and fails to reveal the same. A good example is the case of asbestos which for a long time nobody perceived as harmful only because the producing company withheld such vital information from the general public that if inhaled, it could be harmful so as to make huge sales from the same. b. Profit motive: This is a belief by corporations that the end result should always be making gains in profits. This is a threat to an ethical company as its operations may not entirely be about making profits. Instead, it should engage in social responsibility activities benefiting the public (Trevin?o & Katherine 75). c. Group thinking: This entails making decisions as a group rather than as individuals. This could imply that creativity and imagination of individuals (managers) is eliminated thus, depriving them of the ability to ethically think over their decisions. Group thinking may not result in wholly accepted ethical results. My perspective According to my ethical beliefs, any corporation or business or individual that operates in earth should be to abide by certain set moral standards or ethical principles. The ‘golden rule’ should be to adhere to basic standards of ethics. As such, if all citizens can be able to conduct themselves in ethical manners, then why would the same not be required of business that are tasked with production of goods and services for consumption. Also believe in enforcing of harsh and stringent means of punishment such as enlisted above. Finally, corporations should be organized to function ethically as one unit and not as single profit making units (Trevin?o & Katherine 25). Works cited Trevin?o, Linda K, and Katherine A. Nelson. Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How to Do It Right. New York: John Wiley, 2011. Print. Fieser, J. & Moseley, A. Introduction to Business Ethics. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc., 2012. Web. 09 October 2013. https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUPHI445.12.1 Read More