Business Science focuses on organizations as agents and as environments, both of these perspectives
elicit fundamental ethical questions:
- If organizations are agents, their behaviour can be evaluated on ethical grounds: which of
their actions and decisions are ethically justifiable
- If organizations are environments, then how does the organizational structure affect the
behaviour of the individual agents within and outside the organizations from an ethical
perspective
Business science focuses on markets, as environments in which organizations operates and as
coordination systems alternative to organizations. Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical
questions again:
- If markets are environments in which organizations operate, how do organizations balance
their need to be competitive with their ethical standing? And how should markets be
regulated in a way that it is possible for organizations to find a balance?
- If markets are alternative to organizations, then in which ways this difference affects the
forms of evaluations practiced within and outside organizations?
Business Science focuses on markets in society, how markets affect society and how society shapes
markets. Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions:
- To which extent current societal values are affected by “what is good for markets”?
- To which extent should regulations on markets reflect societal values?
Ethical decision-making: the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a way that is
consistent with ethical principles, which entails recognizing alternatives, stakeholders and
consequences.
- Decision-making processes are typically multi-dimensional
- Decisions involve clashes of legitimate rights or values or different principles and notions of
what is good
- Core to ethical decision-making is the ability to balance clashing values
- No clash of values no ethical problem
What ethical behaviour is not, is not the same as:
- Acting according to one’s feelings of what is right
- Acting according to religious beliefs
- Abiding the law
- Following social conventions/culturally accepted norms
- Acting on the basis of scientific knowledge
** All of these might provide valuable input to consider, they often are not enough and ethics cannot
be reduced to any of these aspects.
Is there an unquestionable basis on which we can ground our ethical principles, different answers:
- Aristotle: do what brings you closer to virtue
- Kant: do what respects human fundamental dignity and self-determinations
- Utilitarianism: do what provides the most good and least harm
- Rawls: do what is necessary to “share one another’s fate”
**These ethical principles might clash with each other when applying them to concrete situations
, Ethics: derived from Greek word êthos, meaning character, custom or habit. Today it can mean:
- A set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values
- The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
Aristotle, student of Plato, tutor of Alexander, the Corpus Artistotelicum. Logos, physics, metaphysics
Ethics for Aristotle:
- Not a theoretical discipline: we are asking not because we want to satisfy our curiosity, but
because by knowing we will be more capable to reach it
- Give answer to the practical question: how should men best live?
- Give answer to questions such as: what is the highest good?
And these questions are always connected with politics: Since political science employs the other
sciences, and also lays down laws about what we should do and refrain from, its end will include the
ends of the others, and will therefore be the human good. For while the good of an individual is a
desirable thing, what is good for a people or for cities is a nobler and more godlike thing. Our
enquiry, then, is a kind of political science, since these are the ends it is aiming at.
Eudaimonia: often translated as happiness, flourishing, well-being, welfare. What could it consist of?
Pleasure, wealth, honour, having virtue?
Aristotle: “About what eudaimonia is, they disagree: the many do not give the same account as the
wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth or honour.”
According to Aristotle, the highest good:
- Is self-sufficient
- Is desirable for itself
- Is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and
- All other goods are desirable for its sake.’
Hence, the highest good is the ultimate purpose, or end.
Telos: goal, end, purpose, function
Teleological: relative to the purpose
Goodness resides in the fulfilment of one’s telos.
Logos: speech, structured thought, reason, ratio. What remains of life has a rational principle
Addendum: man as political animal
Artete: excellence, virtue. “excellence displayed in the fulfilment of purpose or function”.
- basic meaning is not an ethical one as “moral virtue”
- its meaning changes depending on what it describes since everything has its own peculiar
excellence
- “if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, human good [is] activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if
there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.”
The good of a human being is specific to being human
Reason is what distinguishes humanity from all other species:
- Using reason well throughout life is what happiness consists in
- The virtue or excellence (arete) of reason is specific to reason
- The eudaimon life is one of “virtuous activity in accordance with reason”.
elicit fundamental ethical questions:
- If organizations are agents, their behaviour can be evaluated on ethical grounds: which of
their actions and decisions are ethically justifiable
- If organizations are environments, then how does the organizational structure affect the
behaviour of the individual agents within and outside the organizations from an ethical
perspective
Business science focuses on markets, as environments in which organizations operates and as
coordination systems alternative to organizations. Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical
questions again:
- If markets are environments in which organizations operate, how do organizations balance
their need to be competitive with their ethical standing? And how should markets be
regulated in a way that it is possible for organizations to find a balance?
- If markets are alternative to organizations, then in which ways this difference affects the
forms of evaluations practiced within and outside organizations?
Business Science focuses on markets in society, how markets affect society and how society shapes
markets. Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions:
- To which extent current societal values are affected by “what is good for markets”?
- To which extent should regulations on markets reflect societal values?
Ethical decision-making: the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a way that is
consistent with ethical principles, which entails recognizing alternatives, stakeholders and
consequences.
- Decision-making processes are typically multi-dimensional
- Decisions involve clashes of legitimate rights or values or different principles and notions of
what is good
- Core to ethical decision-making is the ability to balance clashing values
- No clash of values no ethical problem
What ethical behaviour is not, is not the same as:
- Acting according to one’s feelings of what is right
- Acting according to religious beliefs
- Abiding the law
- Following social conventions/culturally accepted norms
- Acting on the basis of scientific knowledge
** All of these might provide valuable input to consider, they often are not enough and ethics cannot
be reduced to any of these aspects.
Is there an unquestionable basis on which we can ground our ethical principles, different answers:
- Aristotle: do what brings you closer to virtue
- Kant: do what respects human fundamental dignity and self-determinations
- Utilitarianism: do what provides the most good and least harm
- Rawls: do what is necessary to “share one another’s fate”
**These ethical principles might clash with each other when applying them to concrete situations
, Ethics: derived from Greek word êthos, meaning character, custom or habit. Today it can mean:
- A set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values
- The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
Aristotle, student of Plato, tutor of Alexander, the Corpus Artistotelicum. Logos, physics, metaphysics
Ethics for Aristotle:
- Not a theoretical discipline: we are asking not because we want to satisfy our curiosity, but
because by knowing we will be more capable to reach it
- Give answer to the practical question: how should men best live?
- Give answer to questions such as: what is the highest good?
And these questions are always connected with politics: Since political science employs the other
sciences, and also lays down laws about what we should do and refrain from, its end will include the
ends of the others, and will therefore be the human good. For while the good of an individual is a
desirable thing, what is good for a people or for cities is a nobler and more godlike thing. Our
enquiry, then, is a kind of political science, since these are the ends it is aiming at.
Eudaimonia: often translated as happiness, flourishing, well-being, welfare. What could it consist of?
Pleasure, wealth, honour, having virtue?
Aristotle: “About what eudaimonia is, they disagree: the many do not give the same account as the
wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth or honour.”
According to Aristotle, the highest good:
- Is self-sufficient
- Is desirable for itself
- Is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and
- All other goods are desirable for its sake.’
Hence, the highest good is the ultimate purpose, or end.
Telos: goal, end, purpose, function
Teleological: relative to the purpose
Goodness resides in the fulfilment of one’s telos.
Logos: speech, structured thought, reason, ratio. What remains of life has a rational principle
Addendum: man as political animal
Artete: excellence, virtue. “excellence displayed in the fulfilment of purpose or function”.
- basic meaning is not an ethical one as “moral virtue”
- its meaning changes depending on what it describes since everything has its own peculiar
excellence
- “if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, human good [is] activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if
there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.”
The good of a human being is specific to being human
Reason is what distinguishes humanity from all other species:
- Using reason well throughout life is what happiness consists in
- The virtue or excellence (arete) of reason is specific to reason
- The eudaimon life is one of “virtuous activity in accordance with reason”.
