The purpose of this article is to investigate about the theoretical foundations of business ethics. Business ethics is a specific area in applied ethics which is raised recently. Business ethics applies the theoretical arguments in general ethics into...
The purpose of this article is to investigate about the theoretical foundations of business ethics. Business ethics is a specific area in applied ethics which is raised recently. Business ethics applies the theoretical arguments in general ethics into actions, activities, policies, institutions within business world.
The most important theoretical task of business ethics seems to establish a moral decision making model which can help managers and other employees to resolve ethical dilemmas in business world. The structure of moral decision making or moral reasoning is consisted of two premises and one conclusion. the major premise in a syllogism includes a moral standard, and minor premise includes fact informations. A conclusion is a moral judgment.
There are various moral standards which can be used into moral decision making. But in this article, it is limited on three moral standards : utility, rights, justice. These moral standards have both advantages and disadvantages. So we need to use them complementally, according to cases or situations which business faces with. It may be called as ideal moral decision making model.