Lecture 3 | Partielo

Review ethical theories

Enlightment theories

Utilitarianism
Kant's theory of duties
Mutually exclusive
Some common elments
Impartiality
Rationality
The question : what's the right thing to do ?

Scope of Business Ethics

Individual ethical issues concern a particular individual's decisions, behaviour or character
Corporate ethical issues concerning corporations and their policies, culture, climate impact
Systemic ethical issues concern the social, political, legal or economic systems within which the company operate

(about capitalism)

Why prosperity matters

"You cannot advocate decency and ethics, you must design the conditions that eliminate the problems. In scarcity, people will tend to steal. If you make things available, people tend not to steal."
Poverty impairs lives, and the imagination is characterized by moral tragedy
Prosperity buys escape : leisure, meaningful work etc.. a different kind of ethics than the ethics of scarcity
It also buys democratic government and social justice

Economic liberty

Freedom to dispose of your propery
Freedom to determine for yourself how you should value things
Freedom to engage in voluntary private contracts with others

For Karl Marx :

Capitalism creates alienation
Real value is displaced by exchange value
M-C-M' cycle is the transformation of money into commodities into money
worthless products
dangerous products
waste

For Mr. Smith (capitalist)

Before any good can be distributed fairly, it has to be produced efficiently
Capitalism offers a superior performance because :
division of labour
invisible hand of the market

Michael Sandel

The logic of the market is that everything should be for sale - this degrades them
Friendship
Sex
Kidneys
Adoptions

Intrinsic vs instrumental issues

Prosperity, doux commerce, injustice, self-destruction seem relate to capitalism in a more instrumental, empirically contingent way
Liberty and corruption arguments refer more directly to intrinsic features of capitalism : we may have to choose

Review ethical theories

Enlightment theories

Utilitarianism
Kant's theory of duties
Mutually exclusive
Some common elments
Impartiality
Rationality
The question : what's the right thing to do ?

Scope of Business Ethics

Individual ethical issues concern a particular individual's decisions, behaviour or character
Corporate ethical issues concerning corporations and their policies, culture, climate impact
Systemic ethical issues concern the social, political, legal or economic systems within which the company operate

(about capitalism)

Why prosperity matters

"You cannot advocate decency and ethics, you must design the conditions that eliminate the problems. In scarcity, people will tend to steal. If you make things available, people tend not to steal."
Poverty impairs lives, and the imagination is characterized by moral tragedy
Prosperity buys escape : leisure, meaningful work etc.. a different kind of ethics than the ethics of scarcity
It also buys democratic government and social justice

Economic liberty

Freedom to dispose of your propery
Freedom to determine for yourself how you should value things
Freedom to engage in voluntary private contracts with others

For Karl Marx :

Capitalism creates alienation
Real value is displaced by exchange value
M-C-M' cycle is the transformation of money into commodities into money
worthless products
dangerous products
waste

For Mr. Smith (capitalist)

Before any good can be distributed fairly, it has to be produced efficiently
Capitalism offers a superior performance because :
division of labour
invisible hand of the market

Michael Sandel

The logic of the market is that everything should be for sale - this degrades them
Friendship
Sex
Kidneys
Adoptions

Intrinsic vs instrumental issues

Prosperity, doux commerce, injustice, self-destruction seem relate to capitalism in a more instrumental, empirically contingent way
Liberty and corruption arguments refer more directly to intrinsic features of capitalism : we may have to choose