1.

Categorical Imperative of
Immanuel Kant
Kantianism is an ethic of duty.
Deontology is the science of duty.
Categorical means positive or absolutely.
Imperative means excessive of command.

Categorical imperative in the ethics of

Kant is the absolute command of the
moral law.
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 Categorical imperative in the
ethics of Kant, the absolute
conditional command of the
law, irrespective of ulterior
end or aim.

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 The German Philosopher
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
developed the most persuasive
and fully articulated vision of
ethics as measured by the
rightness of rules, rather than by
consequences.

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 Kant believed that the moral
person is one of goodwill,
and that person renders
ethical decisions based on
what is right, regardless of
the consequences of the
decision.
Eg : Student writing exam.
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But how does the person of
goodwill know what is right?

Here, Kant propounded the

categorical imperative, the notion
that every person should act on only
those principles that she or he, as a
rational person, would prescribe as
universal laws to be applied to the
whole of mankind.
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 To Kant, what is right for me is right
for all, and each of us can discover
the “right” by exercising our rational
faculties.
Kantian rules recognise universal
rights such as freedom of speech,
the right of privacy, or freedom of
conscience. Problem exist, when an
individual does not know which rules
to follow.
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Good governance
is doing the right
thing and good
management is
doing things right.
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Discussion
Do you consider
copying ethical?
If No, why do we do it?

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 Ethical Relativism,
Absolutism,
and Pluralism

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 Ethical relativism
Ethical Relativism has several important insights:
 The need for tolerance and understanding
 The fact of moral diversity
 We should not pass judgment on practices in
other cultures when we don’t understand them
 Sometimes reasonable people may differ on
what’s morally acceptable

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Three Questions about the Meaning of Relativism
What part of morality is
relative?
•Behavior
•Peripheral values
Morality is relative.
•Fundamental values

How much of Relative to what?

morality is
•Individuals
relative?
•Cultures
•All
•Nations
•Most
•Groups
•Some

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What is relative?
Behavior
Different behaviors may exemplify the same value
The same behavior may exemplify different values
in different culture
Peripheral values
Obviously some culturally-specific values
Core values
Are there central values found in all cultures?

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Ethical Relativism:
Solipsism
 Sometimes we say that we
can’t judge other cultures
because we can’t fully
understand them.
 Do we need full
understanding to judge
something?
 Do we even have full
understanding of ourselves?
 Does it deny a main goal of
multiculturalism?

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Ethical Relativism:
Overlapping Cultures
Ethical relativism
suggests that we let
each culture live as it
sees fit
This is only feasible
when cultures don’t
have to interact with
one another.

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Ethical Relativism:
Overlapping Cultures
The actual situation
in today’s world is
much closer to the
diagram at the right.

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Ethical Relativism:
A Self-Defensive Position
Ethical relativism maintains that we cannot make
moral judgments about other cultures
The corollary of this is that we are protected in
principle against the judgments made by other
cultures
Shares this characteristic with absolutism

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Ethical Absolutism
Absolutism comes in many
versions--including the
divine right of kings
Absolutism is less about
what we believe and more
about how we believe it
Common elements:
 There is a single Truth
 Their position embodies that
truth

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Ethical Absolutism
Ethical absolutism gets some things right
We need to make judgments (at least
sometimes)
Certain things are intolerable
But it gets some things wrong, including:
Our truth is the truth
We can’t learn from others

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Ethical Pluralism
Combines insights of both relativism and
absolutism:
The central challenge: how to live together
with differing and conflicting values
Fallibilism: recognizes that we might be
mistaken
Sees disagreement as a possible strength:

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 Ethical Pluralism
Ethical pluralism offers three categories to describe
actions:
Prohibited: those actions which are not seen as
permissible at all
Absolutism sees the importance of this
Tolerated: those actions and values in which
legitimate differences are possible
Relativism sees the importance of this
Ideal: a moral vision of what the ideal society
would be like

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 Ethical Pluralism

For each action or

policy, we can place it
in one of three
regions:
Ideal--Center
Permitted--Middle
 Respected
 Tolerated

Prohibited--Outside

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Five Questions
What is the present state?
What is the ideal state?
What is the minimally acceptable state?
How do we get from the present to the
minimally acceptable state?
How do we get from the minimum to the
ideal state?

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Developing a Moral Stance
Here’s a way of visualizing these issues:

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Conventional Ethics of Albert Z Cars
Is Business Bluffing Ethical ?
Carr’s article asserts that bluffing in
business may be ethical. Carr explains
how bluffing (deceiving) in certain
situations may be more acceptable than
in others.

On the other hand there is a true

benefit from a reputation for honesty
in business as well.
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 Eg : In the criminal court, where the
criminal is not expected to tell the truth
when he pleads not guilty.
Eg : Millions of businessmen feel
constrained every day to say yes to their
bosses when they secretly believe no and
that this is generally accepted as
permissible strategy when the
alternative might be the loss of a job.
The essential point here is, that the
ethics of business are game ethics,
different from the ethics of religion.
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 A man who intends to be a winner in the
business game must have a game players
attitude.
An apple distributor questions himself
whether he has to hide rotten apples covered
below good apples exposed.
Whatever the form of bluff, it is an integral
part of the game, and the executive who does
not master its techniques is not likely to
accumulate much money or power.
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 Aristotelian Ethics

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Aristotle’s ethics is a theory based on
the concept of virtue.
Virtue means moral excellence.
Aristotle described virtue as a
character trait that manifests itself in
habit action.
 Virtue ethics
It is concerned with pursuing a certain type of
morally inclusive excellence.
Aristotle called it eudaimonia, which can be
roughly translated as 'happiness', or 'human
flourishing'. It has four attributes

Its primary attribute is a strong emphasis on

the importance of certain generally accepted
virtues of character; indeed it is through
honing and perfecting these virtues that an
individual becomes truly ethical.
Virtue Ethics

Secondly, a strong emphasis is placed on the

existence of an active community that nurtures these
virtues.
Thirdly, virtue-ethics theory makes clear that in the
moral life one cannot rely merely on rules or
guidelines, in addition an ability to exercise sound
moral judgement is requisite.
Finally, the successful identification and emulation
of moral exemplars or role models is essential for the
dissemination of morality within the aforementioned
nurturing community.
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A second claim Aristotle asserts that before one
can even begin to inquire into the nature of the
good “one must first have received a proper
upbringing in moral conduct”. It would appear
that in order to become good, it is necessary to
be good already.
Experience is the product of a long time. And
the experience can not be gotten
secondhandedlly, in other words, it can not be
thought or learned in an academic manner.
To be wise requires experience, yet one first
needs to be wise in order to reflect upon and
understand one’s various experiences, making
sense of them.
Practical wisdom itself is a form of
“perception”- that is the ability to see what kind
of action is called for under particular
circumstances. Practical wisdom is
concerned with particulars, and
knowledge of particulars come form
experience.
One of the essential tragedies of life and at the
same time, one of its cosmic jokes that when
we need wisdom the most (when we are
young), we are the least likely to have it.

When we do seem to have wisdom, we no

longer need it as desperately.
The life’s ultimate paradox is the
more we know that we know so
very little; and less we know that
of life the more certain we are.
This is why those who are
experienced so often try to give
their wisdom to those who need
it most but are also the least
likely to want or appreciate it!
 •Business Ethics can be taught in a framework of Global
Eudemonia introduced by Aristotle, meaning the material
and the spiritual wellbeing of a community, the ultimate
goal, the telos, of the society.

•Business ethics programs need to teach that the global

corporation must not just seek profits for its stockholders
and big bonuses for its senior management, but also
enhance the opportunities for a society where people can
contribute in a business environment in a free economy for
the benefit of the global corporation's stockholders and
managers and other stakeholders, labor and the world
community.

•Global harmony and global eudemonia must become the

ultimate goal. Theories of Ethics/ Fr Arun
12/08/21 35
 Aristotle's list of virtues for corporate world are:

Wisdom
Aristotle's virtue of wisdom contains the combination of
"scientific knowledge and intuitive intelligence" and the
capacity to differentiate between actions that one should or
should not pursue. The virtue of wisdom in the business arena
is one of the keys and shields to ethically process complex
ambiguous challenges.

Courage
Aristotle's second virtue, in the global business is the
courageous man daring to invent, create, build, and to
navigate between extremes and avoid the temptation to be
reckless and unethical.

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 Self-control
•The third Aristotelian virtue, is an extremely important element as
individuals are confronted with opportunities to self-inflict greed upon
"one's self' and others.
• Individuals in the global corporations often lose self-control, and embark
upon the cowardly path to destruction.
•Knowing “one's self” and practicing self-restraint is difficult, but a
standard and value that must be the individual and corporate goal.

Justice
•Justice is the highest virtue with respect to the many interactions that
take place in the corporation with the many stakeholders, clients,
customers, employees, vendors and the society at large.
•An Aristotle proverb emphasizes: "In justice is all virtues found in sum”.
•Global Harmony and Eudemonia and the wisdom of Aristotelian ethics, is
a philosophical proven system that we need to study and indoctrinate into
every aspect of business education and offer to global corporations
throughout the world.

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In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle concludes
that the role of the leader is to create the
environment in which all members of an
organization have the opportunity to realize their
own potential. He says that the ethical role of the
leader is not to enhance his or her own power but
to create the conditions under which followers can
achieve their potential.

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 Aristotle raises a set of ethical questions that are directly
relevant to corporate leaders who wish to behave in ethical
ways.
Am I behaving in a virtuous way?
How would I want to be treated if I were a member of this
organization?
What form of social contract would allow all our members
to develop their full potential in order that they may each
make their greatest contribution to the good of the whole?
To what extent are there real opportunities for all
employees to develop their talents and their potential?
To what extent do employees participate in decisions that
effect their work?
To what extent do all employees participate in the
financial gain resulting from their own ideas and efforts?
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 He also raises a lot of useful questions about the distribution of rewards
in organizations based on the ethical principle of rewarding people
proportionate to their contributions.

here are some Aristotelian questions that virtuous leaders might ask:

Am I taking more than my share of rewards-more than my contribution

is worth?

Does the distribution of goods preserve the happiness of the

community?

Does it have a negative effect on morale? Would everyone enter into the
employment contract under the current terms if they truly had different
choices?

Would we come to a different principle of allocation if all the parties

concerned were represented at the table?
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Might – Equals – Right
Approach of Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) is undoubtedly the
harshest and most influential critic of the
inequalities about private property
institutions and free markets are accused of
cheating.
Workers cannot produce anything without
the involvement of the means of
production, they are forced to sell their
labour which is the only way to subsist for
them.
They sell labour to the owner in return for a
wage. The owners try to exploit the situation
by paying less to the workers.
Thus according to Marx,
capitalism promotes injustice and
undermines communal
relationships.
Marx held that human beings should
be enabled to realise their nature by
freely developing their potential for
self expression and satisfying their
human needs.
Capitalism and market economy words are used
interchangeably.
Capitalism is an economic system combining the
‘private’ ownership of productive enterprises
with ‘competition’ between them in the pursuit
of ‘profit’.

The above definition contains three

aspects, which are :
•Private ownership
•Competition
•Profit motive.
In Marx’s view, capitalism
alienated the lower working
classes of neither allowing
them to develop their
productive potential nor
satisfying their real human
needs.
 An ethics of the Communist Manifesto?
Consider for a moment one recent effort
endeavouring to establish:

(1)that the ethics of the Manifesto is simply an

expression of the needs, hopes and desires of the
modern working class; and
(2)that it alone conforms to the necessary and
desirable direction of social evolution

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"Capitalism is bad because the proletariat finds it so
from the standpoint of its own class needs and interests"
and "The struggle of the working class for the overthrow
of capitalism is justified and right not only because it
expresses their needs and interests, hence their ethics,
but because their ethics is the highest or best possible
at this stage of history.”
The first of these statements correctly stresses the
partisanship of Marxism in the class struggle; the
second, its historical perspective and appeal for support
from other classes.

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I know for sure
that what we
dwell on is who
we become.
- Oprah
Winfrey