Good Governance & Social Responsibility

1. Good Governance and
Social Responsibility
LESSON 1 : WHY STUDY ETHICS
RESEARCHED AND PREPARED BY:
EDEN U. ALBERTO, MBA, LLB, MPA
PROFESSOR

2. Learning Objectives
Identify the reasons why the study of ethics is
importance
Explain the nature and meaning of business ethics
Explain the difference between ethical values and
other values
Clarify the difference between ethics and the law
Describe the distinction between ethics and ethos
Distinguish between personal morality, virtues &
social ethics
Identify ethical issues within a case description

3. What is Ethics?
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that focuses on
morality and the way in which moral principles are
applied to everyday life.
Ethics has to do with fundamental questions such as
- “What is fair?”
- “What is just?”
- “What is the right thing to do in this situation?”

4. What is Business Ethics?
Business ethics focuses on what constitutes right or
wrong behavior in the world of business.
Corporate business executives have a responsibility
to their shareholders and employees to make
decisions that will help their business make a profit.
But in doing so, businesspeople also have a
responsibility to the public and themselves to
maintain ethical principles.

5. Note:
Although ethics provides moral guidelines, individuals
must apply these guidelines in making decisions.
Ethics that applies to business (business ethics) is not a
separate theory of ethics; rather, it is an application of
ethics to business situations.
Although all people have ethical responsibilities, higher
ethical standards are imposed upon professionals who
serve as social models, such as physicians, attorneys, and
businesspeople.

6. Why Study Ethics?
Need to be prepared for careers in business
Many have been harmed by lack of attention to
ethics
Law requires it
Lack of knowledge creates risks in the marketplace

7. Note:
A company can lose in the market place, it can go out
of business, and its employees can go to jail if no one
is paying attention to the ethical standards of the
firm
Ethical behavior and ethical reputation can provide a
competitive advantage, or disadvantage in the
marketplace and with customers, suppliers, and
employees.

8. For Business Students:
Without background in BE, student will be
unprepared for a career in contemporary business;
Familiarity with BE is crucial, it is not only managers
who can suffer from ethical lapses, employees,
consumers, are also affected by decisions made
within the business organizations, thus, everyone has
a good reason for being concerned with the ethics of
decision makers

9. Values and Ethics: Doing Good & Doing Well
In general, values are those beliefs or standards that
incline us to act or choose in one way rather than the
other.
Truly exceptional and enduring companies all placed
great emphasis on a set of core value.
These core values are described as:
- “the essential and enduring tenets” that help
define the company and are
- “not to be compromised for financial gain or
short-term expediency”

10. Note:
A company’s core values, are those beliefs and
principles that provide the ultimate guide in its
decision making.
Different types of values; financial, religious,
historical, nutritional, political, scientific, and
aesthetic values.
Individuals can have their own personal values, and
importantly, business organizations also have values.

11. No “right” set of core values
Set of core values are essential in long-term success
of business organizations, but there is no specific
right set of core values.
It is important that business organizations have
values.

12. Two Important Elements of Values
1st Ethical values serve the ends of human well being.
acts and choices that aim to promote human well-being
are acts and choices based on ethical values.

13. Two Important Elements of Values
2nd The well being promoted by ethical values is not a
personal and selfish well-being.
Ethics requires that the promotion of human well
being be done impartially.
No one person’s well-being counts as more worthy
than any other’s.
Ethical acts and choices should be acceptable and
reasonable from all relevant points of view.

14. Are strong ethical values good for business?
Sometimes they are, and sometimes they are not…,

15. Nature & Goals of Business Ethics
Business ethics focuses on what constitutes right or
wrong behavior in the world of business.

16. Nature & Goals of Business Ethics
In a descriptive sense BE refers to those
Values, standards, and principles that operate
within business.
In normative and descriptive elements
BE also refers to an academic discipline that not
only studies those standards, values and principles,
but also seeks to articulate and defend the ones that
ought or should operate in business.

17. Business Ethics and the Law
The law is an expression of the ethical beliefs of
our society.
Compliance with the law alone will prove
insufficient for ethically responsible business.

18. Business Ethics and the Law
Law and ethics are not the same thing. The
question,
“Is an act legal?” is different from the question, “Is
an act ethical?”
The law cannot codify all ethical requirements.
Therefore, an action might be unethical, yet not
necessarily illegal~.

19. Business Ethics and the Law
Similarly, just because an act is illegal does
not necessarily mean it is immoral.
Mr. A was acting illegally when he refused to
give up her seat on the bus to a person with
disability, but that does not necessarily
mean he was acting unethically.

20. Business Ethics and the Law
Should an individual obey the law even if it would
be unethical to do so? Under the theory of civil
disobedience espoused by Martin Luther King,
Mahatma Ghandi and others, an immoral law
deserves to be disobeyed.
Can you think of any examples of acts that would
be illegal, yet arguably ethical?

21. Ethics and Ethos
Ethics is derived from the Greek word “ethos”
meaning customary or conventional.
To be ethical, in the sense of ethos , is to conform to
what is typically done, to obey the conventions and
the rules of one’s society and religion

22. Business Ethics and the Law
However, philosophical ethics denies that simple
conformity and obedience are the best guides to how
we should live.
Philosophical ethics requires us to abstract ourselves
from what is normally or typically done, and reflect
upon whether or not what is done, should be done,
and whether what is valued should be valued.

23. Business Ethics and the Law
The difference between what is valued and what
ought is the difference between ethos and ethics
As a branch of philosophical ethics, BE asks us to
step back from our daily decisions, step back from
the ethos of business, to reflect upon how business
decisions affect our lives.

24. Morality, Virtues and Social Ethics
How ought we to live~?
This part of ethics is sometimes referred to as
morality.
Part of morality involves examining principles and
rules that might help us decide how to act.

25. Morality, Virtues and Social Ethics
Another important part of morality involves an
examination of those character traits, or virtues, that
would constitute a life worth living~.
How we should “act”, person we should “be”
In the collective sense, this is the question about how
a society to be structured (arranged, controlled),
about how we ought to live together.
This area is sometimes referred to as social ethics
and it raises questions of public policy, law, civic
virtue, and political philosophy.

26. Ethical Perspectives:
Managers and Other Stakeholders
BE often is interpreted to mean the ethics of those
charged with acting on behalf of a business.
What should a business manager do in various
situations? In this sense, BE can be interpreted as
managerial ethics.
But, a decision faced from the point of view of
business management raises different issues that
those faced from the point of view of employees or
owners

27. Ethical Perspectives:
Managers and Other Stakeholders
What ever social arrangement exists, BE asks us to
step back from what is usually and customarily done
in the business world to ask the normative question
of ethics.
How should we live?
How should I live as an individual?
How should we live in a community?
What kind of person I am choosing to be?
What kind of society ought we to create?

28. Questions to Ponder
Can a good business be an unethical business?
How would you answer someone who asked “ Why
should I study Ethics if I an’t to be an accountant?

29. Reference
An Introduction to Business Ethics
Joseph DesJardins (2009) McGraw-Hill
To God Be the Glory