Business Ethics
Different ethical perspectives in business
Business ethics is the attitude and ways in which a business is formed and the way in which a business deal with the world. Many businesses behave in divert or different ways depend on the way it’s formed by the owners of the business Business ethics can be described as principle and standards that is guiding the behavior of people in the business. Many businesses have different reputation depends on the ways in which they have formed some business have bad reputation while some have a bad reputation. Some businesses are formed for money-making ventures while some are formed because they want to make money and at the same time want to give their customers maximum satisfaction.
1. There should be discussions of issues and principles (theories, virtues, etc.) at three general “levels”:
(a) A “micro-level” concerning the behavior of individuals working within or interacting with businesses. What rights and obligations do they have, what kinds of actions are permissible, what virtues and character traits should they cultivate, how should they resolve dilemmas, and so on?
(b) A “mid-level” concerning the activities, policies, and governance structures of organizations like firms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), professional associations, industry associations, and regulatory agencies. How do we evaluate the activities of these entities? What rights, obligations, responsibilities, and permissions do they have? What internal structures, hierarchies, chains of authority, rules, cultures, and so on, are appropriate for such organizations; and how might they legitimately structure the obligations, rights, characters, and identities of the individuals working within or interacting with them?
(c) A “macro-level” concerning the structure of markets and their regulation within a democratic state and an international economy. How free markets for goods, services, are labor, capital, and externalities (like carbon) justified, and what justifies their regulation? Who has the authority to regulate these markets (domestically and internationally), and what principles, standards, and procedures are appropriate for designing and enforcing regulation? What roles are appropriate for businesses and their stakeholders in political and regulatory processes?
2. Comprehensive discussion of issues at each of these levels must be closely linked to those at the other levels. It will be difficult to judge what individuals ought to do across a broad range of situations in business without taking into account the nature of the organizations they are engaging with, and the rules and norms within organizations depend upon more general justifications of the role of these organizations within the larger economic and political systems.
The justifications of market designs and regulations must, in turn, take account of micro-level issues like fundamental individual rights, as well as mid-level issues concerning, for example, the dynamics of governance and individual or collective decisionmaking within firms and other organizations.
3. Given the range of empirical, legal, and institutional issues arising at each “level,” it is clear that the field of business ethics must be thought of as interdisciplinary and not merely as a “branch” of ethics conceived of as a purely philosophical discipline (see methods of practical ethics). Normative principles or judgments will typically rely on complex (and contested) empirical understandings of how institutions like firms, markets, or regulatory agencies, not to mention human brains and minds.
