Business Ethics: John Locke

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Business Ethics: John Locke

Business Ethics

Business ethics is defined as “a specialized study of moral right and wrong that focusses on moral standards as they apply to business institutions, organizations, and behavior” (Velasquez, 2014, p.15). Business ethics is the study of moral standards that focusses primarily on how these standards may apply to social systems and/or organizations. For this paper I will be focusing on one of the great minds of business ethics, John Locke, his ideas and contributions to business ethics.

Business ethics investigations can be broken down into three different sub-categories, systematic, corporate, and individual. Systematic issues in business are ethical questions about economic, political, legal, and other institutions within which businesses operate. Corporate issues are ethical questions dealing in a particular organization, such as, questions about the morality of their activities, policies, practices, or organizational structure of a company taken as a whole. The last of the sub-categories is individual, individual issues are ethical questions about a particular individual or individuals within the company and their behaviors and/or decisions, this can include the morality of their decisions, actions, or the character of that individual (Velasquez, 2014).

John Locke

John Locke was a British philosopher and Oxford academic and medical researcher. Locke was regarded as one of the most influential thinkers and was known as the “Father of Classical Liberalism”. Locke was considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, and was equally important to social contract theory. His work significantly influenced the development of epi...

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... Retrieved , from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKZopPoBjNU

SparkNotes Editors. (2005). SparkNote on John Locke (1634–1704). Retrieved April 9, 2014, from http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/johnlocke/

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke: Two Philosophers Compared. (2013, November 8). YouTube. Retrieved , from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2LVcu01QEU

Three Minute Philosophy - John Locke. (2009, September 30). YouTube. Retrieved , from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-buzVjYQvY

Tuckness, A. (2005, November 9). Locke's Political Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved , from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/

Uzgalis, W. (2001, September 2). John Locke. Stanford University. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/

Velasquez, M. (2014). Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases (7th ed.) New Jersey: Bizarre Crafts.

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