Ethical Concepts

Kristu Jayanti College Bangalore -560077

1. Business Ethics A specialized study of moral right and wrong that concentrates on moral standards as they apply to business institutions, organizations, and behaviour. 2. Morality The standards that an individual or a group has about what is right and wrong or good and evil. 3. Moral Standards The norms about the kinds of actions believed to be morally right and wrong as well as the values placed on the kinds of objects believed to be morally good and morally bad. VALUES – are principles and guidance which are absolute in nature and lead to an admirable and desirable level of perfection in life.

Morality

Ethics

1 Attributes of a personal character.

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2 Personal code of conduct. 3 Expectation of an individual behaviour 4 Only personal morality

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5 Usually unchanging (Ex: honesty)

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Attributes of a collective social system where morals are applied. Social code of conduct. Expectations of a group’s behaviour. National ethics, Social ethics, company ethics, professional ethics Depend on situations change.

4. Non-Moral standards The standards by which we judge what is good or bad and right or wrong in a non-moral way. 5. Normative Study

An Investigation that attempts to reach conclusions about what things are good or bad or about what actions are right or wrong. 6. Descriptive Study An investigation that attempts to describe or explain the world without reaching any conclusions about whether the world is as it should be. 7. Globalization The worldwide process by which the economic and social systems of nations have become connected. 8. Multinational Corporation A company that maintains manufacturing, marketing, service, or administrative operations in many different host countries. 9. Ethical Relativism A theory that there are no ethical standards that are absolutely true and that apply or should be applied to the companies and people of all societies. 10. Information Technology The use of extremely powerful and compact computers, the internet, wireless communications, digitalization, and numerous other technologies that have enabled us to capture, manipulate, and move information in new and creative ways. 11.Cyberspace A term used to denote the existence of information on an electronic network of linked computer systems. 12.Nanotechnology A new field that encompasses the development of tiny artificial structures only nanometers (billions of a meter) in size. 13.Genetic Engineering A Large variety of new techniques that allows change in the genes of the cells of humans, animals, and plants. 14.Moral Reasoning

The reasoning process by which human behaviors, institutions, or policies are judged to be in accordance with or in violation of moral standards. 15. Law of agency A law that specifies the duties of persons who agree to act on behalf of another party and who are authorized by an agreement so to act. 16.Prisoner’s dilemma A situation where two parties must choose to cooperate or not, and where both gain when both cooperate, but if only one cooperates the other one gains even more, while if both do not cooperate both lose. 17.Utility The inclusive term used to refer to any net benefits produced by action. 18.Ethics of care An ethic that emphasizes caring for the concrete well being of those near to us. 19.Ethics of virtue An ethic based on evaluations of the moral character of persons or groups. 20.Utilitarianism A general term for any view that holds that actions and policies should be evaluated on the basis of the benefits and costs they impose on society. 21.Cost-Benefit Analysis A type of analysis used to determine the desirability of investing in a project by figuring whether its present and future economic benefits outweigh its present and future economic costs. 22.Efficiency Operating in such a way that one produces a desired output with the lowest resource input. 23.Non-economic goods

Goods, such as life, love, freedom, equality, health, beauty, whose value is such that no quantity of any economic good is equal in value to the value of the non-economic good. 24.Instrumental goods Things that are considered valuable because they lead to other good things. 25.Intrinsic goods Things that are desirable independent of any other benefits they may produce. 26.Justice Distributing benefits and burdens fairly among people. 27.Rights Individual entitlements to freedom of choice and well-being. 28. Rule utilitarianism The basic strategy of limiting utilitarian analysis to evaluations of moral rules. 29. Legal right An entitlement that derives from a legal system that permits or empowers a person to act in a specified way or that requires others to act in certain ways toward that person. 30. Moral rights Rights that human beings of every nationality possess to an equal extent simply by virtue of being human beings. 31.Negative rights Duties others have to not interfere in certain activities of the person who holds the right. 32.Positive rights Duties of other agents(it is not always clear who) to provide the holder of the right with whatever he or she needs to freely pursue his or her interests. 33.Categorical imperative The requirement that everyone should be treated as a fee person equal to everyone else. 34. Maxim The reason a person in a certain situation has for doing what he or she plans to do.

35.Distributive justice Distributing society’s benefits and burdens fairly. 36.Retributive justice Blaming or punishing persons fairly for doing wrong. 37.Compensatory justice Restoring to a person what the person lost when he or she was wronged by someone. 38.Political Equality Equal participation in, and treatment by, the political system. 39.Economic equality Equality of income, wealth, and opportunity. 40.Puritan Ethic The view that every individual has a religious obligation to work hard at his calling (the career to which God summons each individual) 41.work ethic The view that values individual effort and believes that hard work does and should lead to success. 42.Productivity The amount a person produces. 43.Principle of equal liberty The claim that each citizen’s liberties must be protected from invasion by others and must be equal to those of others 44.difference principle The claim that a productive society will incorporate inequalities, but takes steps to improve the position of the most needy members of society. 45.principle of fair equality of opportunity The claim that everyone should be given an equal opportunity to qualify for the more privileged positions in society’s institutions. 46.Original position An imaginary meeting of rational self-interested persons who must choose the principles of justice by which their society will be governed. 47. Veil of ignorance

The requirement that persons in the original position must not know particulars about themselves which might bias their choices such as their sex, race, religion, income, social status, etc. 48. Reversibility Capable of being applied to oneself. 49.Universalizability Capable of being applied equally to everyone. 50.Socialistic ethic According to socialistic view of justice, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is the principle of distributing a society’s burdens and benefits respectively. 51.Capitalistic ethic Justice based on contribution – Benefits should be distributed according to the value of the contribution the individual makes to a society, a task, a group, or an exchange. 52. Communitarian ethic An ethic that sees concrete communities and communal relationships as having a e fundamental value that should be preserved and maintained.