DO GOOD ETHICS PAY FOR THEMSELVES - Essay Example

The objections made by Tightpenny to the idea of ethics seem to be ill-founded since it can be shown that ethics are quite relevant to business and can actually help profits. Ethical responsibility and corporate social awareness have become important for modern business enterprises but today, a company has to do a lot more than simply support social causes. It must advertise that it is supporting social causes. The ease with which information can shared amongst people in countries like the UK makes it impossible for a company to lie about something or hide it for long from the public.

Dark pasts and shady dealings soon come out and hurt the company in more ways than one. Therefore, remaining ethical and advertising about being ethical is quite important. In this sense, business ethics are important aspects of running any company and the reasons for that are not limited to legal requirements or government orders (Medawar, 1976). The reason for running an ethical business can be shown to come from the highly valued theory of ethical egoism which suggests that people should what would be best for them in the long run.

This approach may be connected with the ideals coming from utilitarian ethics or the approach taken by universalism but the basic reason for companies acting ethically is that ethics are good for business. The basic reason for this situation is due to the emergence of ethical consumers. These consumers like to know that their buying decisions and the support they give to companies are responsible companies. This consumer will make purchase decisions which are influenced by knowing the operations of the company from s/he is buying products.

While the idea of being ethical may have as many definitions as there are consumers in the market but in a broad sense, the consumer could be very hesitant when buying goods or services from an organisation that does not have high ethics. These high ethics include stipulations such as its