Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The three ethical perspectives
The three ethical perspectives
Four Ethical Lenses
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The three ethical perspectives
The second ethical perspective to be observed is utilitarianism. Unlike egoism, utilitarianism focuses on the consequences involved with a decision, and the severity of those consequences. Furthermore, utilitarians would select the decision that has the least amount of consequences involved with a situation. In this situation, this ethical perspective would view leaking company secrets as an unethical action because it would consider all the consequences that would be involved with leaking the company secrets. In Lockheed Martin and Boeing case, a utilitarian would not have gone about the situation like Ken Branch did because the utilitarian would understand if they were caught providing Lockheed Martin company secrets they would lose their
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
Utilitarianism concerns itself with promoting the best outcomes for the greatest numbers in order to be ethically acceptable, utilitarianism is a consequentialist approach which aims at results of actions regardless of how they are carried out. Utilitarian monsters, a term coined by R. Nozick, are those who “get enormously greater gains in utility from any sacrifice of others than these others lose. For, unacceptably, the theory seems to require that we all be sacrificed in the monster’s maw, in order to increase total utility”.(The Utility Monster, 2011)
“Most people in the U.S. want to do the right thing, and they want others to do the right thing. Thus, reputation and trust are important to pretty much everyone individuals and organizations. However, individuals do have different values, attributes, and priorities that guide their decisions and behavior. Taken to an extreme, almost any personal value, attribute, or priority can “cause” an ethical breach (e.g. risk taking, love of money or sta...
Strong internal rivalry between the after-merged Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corp is also contributing to company’s ethical scandals. As competition between each party gets stiffer, employees might tend to resort to ethical breaches to gain competitive advantages so as to outshine each other.
In Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill gives an account for the reasons one must abide by the principles of Utilitarianism. Also referred to as the Greatest-happiness Principle, this doctrine promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. More specifically, Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, holding that the right act is that which yields the greatest net utility, or "the total amount of pleasure minus the total amount of pain", for all individuals affected by said act (Joyce, lecture notes from 03/30).
Although I should definitely have a strong loyalty to the company for which I serve, my idealist mentality would like to think that I would not let my moral compass or sense of right succumb to the pressures of potentially moral gray areas. Would I definitely like to have any advantage or legally/morally-justified edge in ensuring the success of a certain business transaction? Of course. However, should trouble arise, either with me or those for whom I am responsible, the culture I would hope I had developed would allow for the potential of what is right to win over what might be best. Based on the article “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making,” my inclination would be that this kind of approach would adhere more to the “Virtue Approach,” placing a strong emphasis on the notion of “’What kind of person will I become if I do[or don’t do] this?’” Had I found out that Amy knew of the information regarding the B&B deal and had not told me, or anyone else, I would have definitely had a conversation with her. However, should she have justified her actions with the thought process which played out in the article, her virtuous approach in dealing with the situation would have made me proud to have called her a colleague, knowing that should even more difficult situations in the future be
Many other businesses may not want to do business as the company was involved with immoral behavior. The unethical business practices of the company will also gain exposure in the media and to the public (Nicol, 2015, n.p). Employees no longer keep unethical activities of the company to themselves. As a whistleblower, they may be perceived as a traitor, but in this case the senior executives are being traitors. They are taking money from immoral behavior and tarnishing the name of the company (Nicol, 2015, n.p).
Ethical behavior is behavior that a person considers to be appropriate. A person’s moral principals are shaped from birth, and developed overtime throughout the person’s life. There are many factors that can influence what a person believes whats is right, or what is wrong. Some factors are a person’s family, religious beliefs, culture, and experiences. In business it is of great importance for an employee to understand how to act ethically to prevent a company from being sued, and receiving criticism from the public while bringing in profits for the company. (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in an business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or to comply with their companies ethical standards. In some instances some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interest of the company. In this essay I will be examining the financial events surrounding Bernie Madoff, and the events surrounding Enron.
Imagine a child living in a hot, government owned apartment in Chicago. He has no father. With his single, jobless mother he struggles to the words of the founding fathers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...” (The Declaration of Independence). This is one of the most famous phrases in the US Declaration of Independence and has become the underpinning of the dreams of millions of people around the world. Although the words are different, these sentiments are reflected in the political and economical policies of many democracies. While the notion of ‘happiness for all’ seems like the obvious solution to many of our persistent problems, we inevitably encounter conflicts between our actions and our morals. “The state is based on……the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities.”(Marx, 1992). This essay focuses on the issues of a prominent theory, Utilitarianism as it blends and encompasses both areas of Economics and Ethics which have become the basis of our governmental bodies.
The Boeing Company is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes; along with rotorcraft, rockets and satellites. Boeing is one of the largest global aircraft manufacturers, second-largest defense contractor in the world based on 2014 revenue, and a large exporter in the United States by dollar value (LP, 2015); making them the world 's largest manufacturer of commercial, military aircraft, missile systems and space technology. The company is organized into five divisions, employs over 162,730 and consistent profits are being record.
As a philosophical approach, utilitarianism generally focuses on the principle of “greatest happiness”. According to the greatest happiness principle, actions that promote overall happiness and pleasure are considered as right practices. Moreover, to Mill, actions which enhance happiness are morally right, on the other hand, actions that produce undesirable and unhappy outcomes are considered as morally wrong. From this point of view we can deduct that utilitarianism assign us moral duties and variety of ways for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain to ensure “greatest happiness principle”. Despite all of moral duties and obligations, utilitarian perspective have many specific challenges that pose several serious threats which constitute variety of arguments in this essay to utilitarianism and specifically Mill answers these challenges in his work. These arguments can be determinated and analyzed as three crucial points that seriously challenges utilitarianism. The first issue can be entitled like that utilitarian idea sets too demanding conditions as to act by motive which always serves maximizing overall happiness. It creates single criterion about “being motived to maximize overall happiness” but moral rightness which are unattainable to pursue in case of the maximizing benefit principle challenges utilitarianism. Secondly, the idea which may related with the first argument but differs from the first idea about single criterion issue, utilitarianism demands people to consider and measuring everything which taking place around before people practice their actions. It leads criticism to utilitarianism since the approach sees human-beings as calculators to attain greatest happiness principle without considering cultural differ...
For example, Spencer ordered EPA Staff to release confidential information to a private organization, but EPA officials were reluctant to relinquish the information to outsiders (O’Leary, p.52). This is another ethical dilemma about truth vs loyalty that caused EPA officials to questioned Spencer motives to the Inspect General Office after he resigns from his job, and accepts another job at a private industry. Was Spencer right to give out confidential business information to secure a better job or should he have concealed his knowledge of business dealings in the agency? Fear was all over the workplace and nobody did not trust Spencer. He was then later investigated by the EPA’S Office of the Inspector General. Those who confronted spencer directly had been reassigned or demoted and some staff members did not trust the inspector general as well (O’Leary, p.54). Staff members feared to leak information to the press because it was better to solve matters inside the organization. The only thing EPA officials could do was to wait for Spencer to eventually hang or self-destruct himself since it was nearly impossible for the inspector general to discipline him for his
The best ethical solution for this case is obviously to have not committed a crime at all. The Enron executives should have taken a step back and looked at what they were doing and gathered their facts. They were committing fraud by creative accounting, acting illegally when using insider trading and shredding their documents relevant to the investigation. Next consider the stakeholders. Anyone who owns stock in the company would suffer along with every employee. Under the values bullet we can assume that they had none. Greed and power got the better of every one of them. An alternative action the company could have taken was to admit the truth and try to find a solution to that one problem instead of committing more illegal acts to add on to the pile. They also could have stopped and brainstormed legal ideas to make more money before all of this started. Enron
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, truth and happiness are falsely engineered to create a perfect society; the belief of the World Controllers that stability is the the key to a utopian society actually led to the creation of an anti-utopian society in which loose morals and artificial happiness exist. Huxley uses symbolism, metaphors, and imagery to satirize the possibiliy of an artificial society in the future as well as the “brave new world” itself.
Egoism focuses on what is best for one’s self. The top executives may have followed this ethics system because they made millions of dollars off of the Enron scandal even though they knew what they were doing was wrong. Since they were doing what was best for them, they must have been acting ethically. It could also be argued that utilitarianism was at work in regards to the Enron scandal. Utilitarianism holds that an action is ethical if it does the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. The end justifies the means. By manipulating their statements, Enron was helping all of their employees and shareholders to keep their jobs and money. This justified and made their choice to lie on their statements the ethical decision to