The document discusses six moral principles of ethics: 1) Human dignity in the priority of labor over capital, emphasizing that human labor creates wealth and capital is the fruit of labor. 2) Respect for basic employee rights such as the right to work, equal opportunities, just wage, security of tenure, due process, and collective bargaining. 3) Social justice, defined as giving each person what is due by respecting all people equally and ensuring the greatest benefits go to the least advantaged through distributive and social justice.

1. MORAL PRINCIPLES
(Part 1)

2. Objectives:
 Able to determine and understand the six moral
principles of Ethics.
 Human Dignity in the Priority of Labor over Capital
 Respects for Basic Employee Rights
 Social Justice
 Social Dimension of Private property
 Option for the Bottom of the Pyramid
 Earth Responsibility and Sustainable Development.

3. Moral Principle 1
Human Dignity in the Priority of Labor over
Capital

4. What you mean by “man above other M's”?
• Man, the human person, is above other
M's (material resources, machine,
methods, management, money, etc.).
• The human labor, the spiritual worker, the
intelligent capital, with God-sublime
dignity, is the real wealth creator (John
Paul II, 1981).

5. What business factors create wealth?
• Providers of capital, otherwise known as
shareholders lay claim to most wealth that
corporations create or generate.
• Marjorie Kelly (2001) underlines the importance
of labor, otherwise known as the human capital
or intellectual capital, the intelligent
entrepreneur, the strategic manager, the diligent
worker. Human resource (labor) is also called
human capital, and human knowledge is known
as intellectual capital.

6. Where did all material capital come from?
• In philosophical terms, all capital is
apparently the result of the historical
heritage of human labor, which means it is
human labor that give birth to capital.

7. Did Abraham Lincoln ever say that “capital is
the fruit of labor”?
• Lincoln said that “capital is the fruit of
labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed; that labor can
exist without capital, but that capital could
never existed without labor. Hence, they
hold that labor is the superior - greatly the
superior - of capital” (1859)

8. Is human labor a sacrificial lamb?
• It may happen that management hits rank-
and-file the strongest in times of regional
or global “stagflation” (stagnation and
inflation combined), recession, or period of
reengineering. As Richard Gwyn (1997)
puts it, “Labor is sacrificed on the inflation
rate's altar of oblation.”

9. Is labor the means to economic
development?
• The human person is not the means to be used for
economic development. The other way is true, that is,
the economic development is a means for the total
development of the human person (Mehrotra & Jolly,
1998).
• Economist Mahar Mangahas (cited in Maximiano, 2003)
said that “in assessing what we should first service -
labor or capital and its high interests - we have chosen to
service the latter when it is the welfare of the former we
should be most concerned with at this time.”

10. Is the spirit superior over matter?
• John Paul II, in Centessimus annus
(1991), emphasizes the “priority of ethics
over technology, the primacy of the person
over things, and the superiority of spirit
over matter.”

11. Is it easy for business to practice this
principle?
• Some managers argue that people are
hired to work and it is “not our business to
train them.” Total manpower training and
development, wrongly perceived as “all
cost and no return,” are therefore last
among the priorities of some corporate
management (Kelley, 2006).

12. How is human dignity preserved among
migrant workers or OFWs?
• It is unfortunate that overseas or migrant
workers, considered as modern-day
heroes, are almost always prone to all
sorts of exploitation by their employers in
the host countries.

13. Is there a more philosphical understanding
of human dignity?
• Human dignity is in the laborer, as it is in the customer
who has the right to be served beyond satisfaction. It is
in the community, the beneficiary of CSR program, as it
is in those in the bottom of the pyramid.

14. Is human labor at times reduced to some
aspects below his dignity?
• The human person is reduced from homo sapiens
(thinking being) to homo faber (working man), as if the
whole being of the worker is equal to his work only and
nothing more. From homo faber, labor is at times
reduced to homo oeconomicus, as if the whole essence
of the human person is equal only to his quantified
materiality, position occupied in the corporate ladder,
income bracket, number of credit cards, insurance or
financial worth. It should not be so.

15. Why is the idea of imago Dei relevant to
human labor?
• As professed by the 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights: “ All men are are created
equal in dignity and rights,” that is every man ,
woman, and child possess intrinsic dignity,
regardless of race or color, religion, sex, party
affiliation, or business connections.

16. What should be the appropriate assessment
of human labor in trade and industry?
• Jose Concepcion, Jr. (Chairman of the ASEAN Chamber
of Commerce , 1996) proposed the rationale why
business has to concider the issue of human dignity. He
said that the agenda of business should express a
deliberate commitment by all to feel the pain and agony
of people who do not live in the dignity of the human
person. He added: “We cannot push free trade for free
trade's sake. Our objective is to improve the quality of
life, especially that of the poor.”

17. What is a more sublime paradigm of the
human dignity?
• The correct concept of labor and human dignity is that of
divine image, and this concept of labor is possible
regardless of various beliefs or religious affiliations. The
human person's natural mission is to subdue the earth
and dominate it. By his labor, the human worker honors
the gifts and talents he received from the Creator.

18. Should the priority of labor over the capital
at the heart of business?
• Yes, this moral principle should be at the heart of every
business, where labor is the primary efficient cause,
while capital, the whole collection of means of
production, remains a mere instrument or instrumental
cause.

19. “Companies cannot survive nor thrive in an environment
where its only concern is profits. In the long run, the
company itself must depend on people for its survival.”
-Cesar A. Buenaventura

20. Moral Principle 2
Respects for Basic Employee Rights

21. What is the business of human rights in
business?
• “All human rights are universal,
indivisible..interdependent and interrelated.”

22. What is the right to work?
• The right to work is fundamental because it flows
from nature, as it is inborn in every person. The
human person is created to work, to till the soil
and raise the cattle, to subdue the earth and its
natural resources. Social responsibility means
making an attempt to fill up this innate vacuum in
the human person (Francis, 2013; John Paul II,
1981).

23. Why is the right to work fundamental to all?
WHY? Addressed to:
First Reason Survival needs Self
Second Reason Natural obligation to
support others
Dependents
Third Reason Psychological need Self

24. What is the right to equal employment
oportunities?
• Equality in employment embraces all without
discrimation: Women, gay, the aged, and those
with heavy Ilocano accent. Employers cannot
and should not discriminate in job application
procedures; the hiring, advancement or
discharge of employees; employee
compensation; job training; and any other terms,
conditions and privileges of employment
(Mendes, 1996).

25. What is the right to just wage and
compensation?
• In the legal sense, the just wage is the minimum wage
that will not only enable the worker to meet the bare cost
of living, but will also provide a means of desirable
improvements in the quality of life. Just wage is not only
the bread to win but also the means to enjoy a better
quality life.
• Anything less is morally unacceptable.

26. What is the basic employee right to security
of tenure?
• Security of tenure means that, in case of regular
employment, the services of any one of the workers
cannot just be terminated except for a just cause or after
a due process.
• The employee right to due process consists of an
objective evaluation of his/her case, a fair hearing and a
chance to appeal, a process very fundamental in firing
and even in demoting.

27. What is the right to due process and a
grievance procedure?
• Due process is the procedure by which an employee can
appeal a decision or action made by a superior in order
to get a rational explanation of the decision and objective
review of its propriety.

28. Do employees have the right to be trained,
to grow, and develop?
• Change is what ancient philosophers and modern hi-tech
experts refer to as the “only permanent thing in the
world.”
• Change can actually make the knowledge and skills one
has learned today obsolete in the near future, and that is
the reason why there is a need to train. Randolf (1995)
insists that training is an empowerment that “consists of
a few simple steps and a lot of persistence” - and it is
both your right and duty.

29. What is the right to collective bargaining?
• As a mode of settling labor disputes and a just means of
compromise between the employer and the laborers, the
collective bargaining is always directed to some issues
and conditions of employment,which are over and above
those mandated by law.

30. Moral Principle 3
Social Justice

31. What is social justice?
• Justice is traditionally defined as suum cuique tradere
meaning “the disposition by which we render to each one
what is due to him/her.”
• Justice implies that everybody plays fair and square,
practicing, honesty and fairness in dealing with others,
that is, if everyone wants to keep the business
environment sound, orderly, and intact (see John Rawls,
1971).

32. Is the issue of justice pertinent to business
and market system?
• Justice dictates that everyone is recognized and
respected for what he/she is, regardless of race, religion,
political connection, or sexual orientation, in the
company's active fight against any kind of bias,
prejudice, and discrimation; that no one is mistreated or
shortchanged and no one is exploited or verbally abused
in the workplace - domestic helper, factory worker, driver,
gasoline boy, and all others.

33. What are the different forms of justice?
• General Justice - directed to the “norms of right order,”
specifcally towards the promotion of the common good.
• Distributive Justice - disposes the legitimate authority to
justly distribute the benefits and burdens to particular
individuals (Aristotle).
* The distribution of burdens in taxation requires
proportionate equality, and proportionate equality is not
necessarily an equal share but a fair share of carrying the burde
of taxes

34. • Commutative Justice - main concern is the strict
mathematical equality that requires us to give to others
what is due to them (Aquinas).
• Social Justice - from the Christian point of view requires
the private sector, all business institutions, NGOs, and the
government to acknowledge that the greatest benefits
should go to the four L's: less fortunate, least advantaged,
the last and the lost.
* preferential option of the poor.