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be, a work
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Business Ethics: (cf two meanings of "ethics" below) (a) an academic discipline that studies those standards, values, and principles that operate in business (explicitly or implicitly) and seeks to articulate and defend the ones that ought or should operate in business. (b) The set of principles or reasons which in fact govern the conduct of business; (c) the set of principles or reasons which should govern the conduct of business.
Caveat emptor: Latin phrase meaning "Let the buyer beware." Caveat emptor refers to a capitalistic philosophy where all responsibility for a product (what it does, how it benefits or harms its users) rests with the buyer, whose responsibility is to choose well. The United States officially rejects such a philosophy (at least in part), for the US has various laws and requirements for product safety, advertising content, etc., that put certain responsibilities for products on the manufacturers.
Consumerism: In the neutral sense, this is simply the promotion of the consumer's interests. In the negative sense, which is the way it is used in Church documents and other critiques of our economy, it means a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods.
Conscience: An act of judgment, not a "feeling" or gut reaction. Conscience always makes particular judgments, about actual situations facing us. There are two sort of particular judgments conscience makes: (1) about the goodness or evil of a concrete choice or act facing us, and (2) reflection judgments about the choices and actions we've previously made. This latter act of conscience leads to either praise or blame and guilt.
Consequences: The results of an action.
Constraint-type duties. See perfect duties
Corporate Social Responsibility: the responsibilities of a corporation to society at large.
Circumstances:
Descriptive: The way things are, the "facts." Descriptive ethics is the study of opinions or beliefs about what is normative in ethics; it seeks merely to catalogue people's opinions about ethics. Normative ethics (see below) is the study of rightness in action, and goodness in states of affairs. It seeks the TRUTH about ethics.
Dischargeable duties: Duties which we can have someone else carry out for us. For example, a parents duty to educate his or her children can be carried out by teachers in the local school system.
Discretionary duties: Duties that we have some discretion or say over who will will fulfill them, and sometimes even whether we will fulfill them. Discretionary duties are also open-ended duties, by their very nature. For example: a duty to promote the firm's prosperity does not dictate your response to every incident, but allows you some choice or flexibility to determine how best to do that.
Duty: an obligation. Something that people are expected to observe.
Economic system: the means by which a society distributes goods and services to its citizens. Every society has some sort of economic system.
Ethical/unethical: adjectives formed from the noun ethics. Interchangeable with moral/immoral.
Ethical Analysis: the analysis of a situation, conflict, or choice in terms of its ethical or moral dimensions, that is, in terms of the right or wrong (actions) and good or bad (character). An ethical analysis will answer the questions: how do the actions in questions stay within the bounds of the morally permissible or obligatory, and how are they the kind of actions that a moral or virtuous person would perform?
Ethics: (1) the field of moral philosophy which rationally inquiries into the truth about moral values, about what is right and wrong, good and bad, with an aim to be rigorous and systematic about our moral thinking. A "rational inquiry" is one that uses reason, conceptual analysis, logic and argument. (2) a person's moral values or beliefs about what things are good and bad, and how people should live their lives. Generally interchangeable with word "morality," though "ethics" has a more critical, self-conscious edge to it, which includes the idea of thinking those values through. A person should be open to rationally examining these values in an "Ethics" class.
Imperfect duty: a duty which binds us in an open-ended and somewhat indeterminate way. It allows us discretion in how we act on them. A duty to give to charity is imperfect: I should do it, but I don't have to give to any charity in particular, nor do I have to give a specific amount.
Integrity: literally means moral "wholeness," our sense of moral "cohesion.," Integrity is the result of blending and coordinating (integrating) the various aspects of your life. Older discussion of integrity spoke of it under the rubric of the "unity of the virtues." Integrity is NOT stubborn and inflexible; "drawing a line" is not the same as being stubborn and inflexible. The person of integrity has convictions and commitments, but they aren't so absolute that he or she won't listen to others, and will never negotiate or compromise--because the person of integrity needs to get along with others. Integrity is sometimes identified as "honesty," but it isn't simply the same as honesty. People who lack integrity may be "hypocrites" (fail to practice what you believe--no wholeness of self), "opportunists" (uses others as instruments--no coherence and respect for others; personal goals without principles), or "chameleons" (fit in and do whatever seems to please others-i.e., no principles, no goals)
Intention:
Leadership: an emotional relationship of love that strives to create power—to empower others—through hope, trust, and a shared vision. Leadership is not simply having power over others, but it is leading, in the best circumstances, leading by the power of one's own goodness or virtue.
Loyalty: a willingness to make personal sacrifices in the interest of someone or thing, in the case of business, in the interest of the firm. It is often claimed that employees have an ethical responsibility to be loyal employees.
Media Literacy: This is a "literacy" or knowledge of media--teaching people (consumers) how to read the messages conveyed through visual images, music, and advertising. Just as "literacy" focusses on the written word--reading and writing, "media literacy" focusses on the non-verbal means of communication--pictures, movies, sounds.
Moral Dilemma: a situation where all your choices or options are morally impermissible, that is, where all options or choices break a regulatory moral rule.
(Moral) Heroism: The morally heroic action is the one which is, by definition, good, not required or obliged, and involves some self-sacrifice. It looks like an action becomes heroic to the extent that it ceases to be one’s duty, though in cases where one’s duty already involves a certain amount of self-danger or self-sacrifice (like firefighting), it may be hard to draw a line between obliged and heroic. An often cited example of a heroic business decision is Johnson and Johnson’s response to the 1982 Tylenol scare. When seven people died in the fall of that year from ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide, Johnson and Johnson’s response was to recall all Tylenol from store shelves, causing it to loose a significant amount of money as well as its market share in the drug market.
Marxism: a materialistic philosophy of the 19th Century, articulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This view of the reality has many aspects, but key for our interests is its insistence on the common ownership of all goods. On this view, any economic view that allows or encourages private ownership of resources, and money-making, is not only wrong, but morally corrupt.
Moral/immoral: adjectives formed from the noun morality. Interchangeable with ethical/unethical.
Moral Point of View: Approaching a problem from the perspective of its being morally right or wrong, or morally excellent. As opposed to the Legal Point of View, or the Economic Point of View, etc. The Moral Point of View has two key features:
(a) a commitment or willingness to seek out and act on reasons—the best action is the one supported by the best reasons. (The opposite of acting by feeling, by some accepted or prevailing morality, acting without any deliberation or persuasive argument.)
(b) a commitment to impartiality, of regarding the interests of everyone as equally worthy of consideration. (The opposite of being purely self-interested)
A commitment to these two key features is justified by the fact that we rational and communal beings; acting this way, therefore, best fits with who and what we are.
Moral Principle: A general standard for evaluating conduct, standards that we apply to all behavior and rules. "Act to produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of persons" or the principle of utility, is an example of a moral principle applicable to all behaviors and rules.
Moral Problem: a "conflict" in which, from the ethical point of view, all options are morally more or less appropriate, or not wrong. As "not wrong" means "morally permissible," another way of understanding this is that no moral rules will be broken.
Moral Rule: A particular directive for action. Can be positive or negative. Ex: Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Rules are part of the "deontic" aspect of morality, specifically concerned with action.
Moral Standard:
Moral Theory:
Moral value: a type of value that serves the end of human well-being, expressing the needs and legitimate expectations of others as well as ourselves. Human well-being includes being and acting fairly, and fairness is something we need and something we expect of others. Efficiency is not something we (always) need, nor something we can legitimately expect of others.
Morality: generally used to describe a one's individual ethics or ethical code.
(Moral) No-brainer: this is a term that I use for a choice where at least one of the options is good and one is bad. In such a situation, it is impossible to justify choosing the bad option over the good option. For example, to my mind, the choice to rape is a moral no-brainer: either you can rape someone which is wrong, or you can refrain from raping them, which is not wrong, and usually hard to rule out as possibility. As far as the process of justification goes, this is a "no-brainer." This might also be described as a temptation.
Motive:
Normative: Ideal, the way things ought to be. Normative ethics is the study of rightness in action, and goodness in states of affairs. It seeks the TRUTH about ethics. Descriptive ethics (see above) is the study of opinions or beliefs about what is normative in ethics; it seeks merely to catalogue people's opinions about ethics.
Objective: (1) a goal or purpose of something. (2) Independent of personal outlook or perspective; the opposite of subjective.
Obligation: A duty. Something that it would be wrong not to do.
On-going duties or obligations: Duties which persist through time. For example, duty to promote the firm's properity continues (at least as long as one has their job). The opposite of one-time duties.
One-time duties or obligations: A duty of the moment or the situation. Once can fulfill it in a determinate way, and once fulfilled, one no long has to worry about it. For example: the duty to pay back a debt. Once paid, the obligation no longer exists.
Open-ended duties or obligations: See discretionary duties.
Perfect duties: duties which bind us in specific and wholly determinable ways and which are straightforwardly dischargeable--fulfillable.
Personal morality: A code of ethics or set of ethical beliefs that are thought to be personal and unique to an individual. However, since ethics is by definition social, principles which apply to everyone, the idea of personal ethics is absurd and as such do not exist.
Prima facie duty: the opposite of actual duty. Prima facie duty is "your duty unless another duty overrides it." Actual duty is what you are obliged to do in a situation. Though they are different in conception, most of the time your prima facie duty will be your actual duty. If another duty overrides your duty, then the latter duty was only a prima facie duty and not an actual duty.
Relativism: the view ethical values and judgments are ultimately dependent upon one's culture, society, or personal feelings; the denial of any moral absolutes, moral values or judgments that are true in themselves.
Right(adjective): "not wrong." (See wrong.) Right and wrong are mutually exclusive terms. Most philosophers choose to define "right" in terms of "wrong," rather than the other way around. This way of doing it allows right to refer to both morally obligatory actions and morally permissible actions. (noun): an entitlement to certain goods; either an entitlement to some actual thing (“positive” rights) or an entitlement to freedom in the pursuit of goods (“negative” or “liberty” rights).
Sexual Harassment: A type of sexual or gender discrimination that denies persons equal employment opportunities. There are two kinds. Quid pro quo sexual harassment is when someone (usually an employer or superior) makes some sexual activity a condition for employement benefits, such as promotions, raises, etc. Hostile working environment harassment is when the work environment itself threatens people sexually—when people or things in the working environment attack someone sexually, harming them in some way.
Stakeholder Theory: A model of Corporate Social Responsibility that argues that business's social responsibilities extend not just to stockholders, but to other stakeholders in the business; a "narrow strain" would see duties to any group vital to survival and success of the corporation; while "broader" strains would see duties to any group or individual who can be affected by the actions of the corporations, including non-living things.
Temptation: a situation where one's choice are between a good and bad thing (see no-brainer), especially where there are some usually self-interested reasons for doing the bad thing. One might to tempted to do wrong in such a situation. A temptation is usually used to distinguish a situation from a moral dilemma or problem.
Value: basically something we care about and which motivates us to act or to choose in one way rather than another. (Compare this to a "wish"—I wish I had a $1,000,000. However, I am not trying to do anything to get it. I am writing this webpage because I value writing philosophical pages, as least more than I value $1,000,000.) A value can also be used as something by which we measure ourselves, others, or our society. There can be religious, historical, political, financial, nutritional, aesthetic, as well as moral values. Values are not feelings, nor are they necessarily personal sorts of things. They are shareable and in many cases already shared. See also moral value.
Virtue: a quality of character that allows one to succeed at the roles and activities one undertakes. An excellence of character (arete) not just for us, or for narrowly defined contexts, but for the larger social scheme of things. Virtues are pervasive traits of character that allows us to fit into a particular society. "A trait that is pleasing and useful to ourselves and pleasing and useful to others."--David Hume
Wrong: morally not permitted, breaks a moral rule. The "no-go" areas as far as morality is concerned. I usually distinguish "morally wrong" from "unethical." "Wrong" (as well as "right") is a classification term—it classifies certain actions. "Ethical" refers to justification. In circumstances where all options or choices are morally wrong (i.e., they all break a rule), as we must act, doing wrong is required. The wrong we can justify doing would still be wrong, though the action is not unethical.
Last Updated November 7, 2006