Two views on ethics
At the outset, it may be said that there is no dearth of literature on various sub-divisions of ethics today, most of it dealing with business ethics. In this lecture the term professional ethics is used loosely and we will be using the terms business ethics and professional ethics interchangeably. However, the major problem of ethics is that despite the importance of ethics in professions and business there is not one view on what constitutes ethical behavior. Not everyone agrees with the idea of the “social responsibilities of business.” Among the major proponents of free market, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (1998) says that “in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.” To him to say that a business executive has social responsibility may mean that he is to act in ways which are not in the interest of employers or to interfere in the market mechanism. Of course, in his individual capacity he is free to act according to his conscience, feelings of charity, his clubs, his country etc. On the other extreme, arguing against rule and act utilitarianism Kitson and Campbell (2001, 13) call for invoking Kant’s deontology (duty): “Let duty be done, though the heavens fall.” Further, they say: “Your duty is to do what you would expect anyone else to do in the situation in which you find yourself.” Kitson and Campbell (2001, 140-141) have classified different approaches to ethics into two major categories: a narrow view and a broader view.
To quote:
In discussing business’s social responsibilities, one may ask what exactly these social responsibilities are. However, it is evident that there is no general consensus, but indeed an intense controversy, over the issue. And a main reason for the lack of consensus seems to be a disagreement about the nature of the business firm itself. In fact, alternative views on the type and extent of a firm’s social responsibilities reflect differing underlying views on what a company is and which individuals or groups have claims on it. In general terms, it seems possible to distinguish two main positions on the social responsibilities of business: a narrow view and a broader view. The latter can, in turn be subdivided into two versions: a narrowly broad view and a very broad view.
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