Explain which moral philosophy you feel is best suited for making business decisions and why.

Question

Explain which moral philosophy you feel is best suited for making business decisions and why.

Answer 1

Philosophy is what you feel is important about a particular topic. My philosophy, from the far side of the business career years is very simple: "Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." I'm sure you'll get lots of answers citing all sorts of scholarly platitudes, citing the likes of the late Edwards Deming, (for whose work I have utmost respect), but a short, profound statement that can linger with you in every decision is one that has a chance of being implemented.

As an added benefit to this answer, I'll offer you my spiritual philosophy at no extra charge (you'll have to look it up yourself!): Joshua 1:9 et.seq.

In His service, Ziggy

Answer 2

Answer:         Grade A++

Businesses are best served by Utilitarianism where actions are right only if it meets the principle of utility.   Actions fit the principle of utility if the outcome is good, pleasurable or produces happiness and does not cause pain or unhappiness.   A business can create a set of standards using Rule-Utilitarianism theory that provides all employees with guidance as to how the business will ethically.  In all cases actions have consequences good or bad.  Sometimes the consequences are obvious and sometimes they are gray and not clear.  It is easy to document the actions that have obvious consequences such as “an employee of a company can not give a government customer any gift or meal over twenty dollars”.  This is an easy one: you go to jail if you do.  But should you give that customer a gift or meal at all?  Will it look like you are trying to gain his or her favor by buying them lunch once a week?  This is one of the gray areas companies struggle with every day.  The company would rather see no gifts or meals at all so  there is no question as to the intent.  The actions that do not have a clear consequence sometimes are  categorized through Act-Utilitarianism theory where you look at the consequence to determine whether the act is right.  As long as there is no negative feedback, there is no problem and you keep doing the action.  When questions your action and lets you know the high number of nineteen dollar lunches is raising suspicion, you start questioning yourself.   The questioning  of your actions make you think about the possible negative consequences?  Business relies on moral philosophy ethical theory. Normative Ethics to create moral standards that regulate conduct.  One strategy of Normative Ethics is Virtue Theories.  In place of making a rule such as “do not kill” Virtue Theories stress the importance of developing good habits of character.  Once we develop this character the person will habitually act in this manner. Another strategy is the Duty Theories.  This theory bases morality on specific, foundational principles of obligation.   Duty Theory reflects our actual moral convictions such as a duty to keep promises, to thank those who help us, not to injure others, to recognize merit and so on.  The third strategy is Consequentialist Theories where we weigh the consequences of our actions to determine  our moral responsibility.   People feel their action is morally right if the consequence is more favorable than unfavorable.  Go back and look at the nineteen dollar lunches to the government employee.  As long as no one questions the action it must be right to continue.  This strategy of Consequentialist Theories gets many people in trouble.  When you are relying on the total good consequences to outweigh the total bad consequences there is never enough room for error.  Statistically speaking at some point you will find the total bad consequences outweighing the good consequences because people do not look at ethical issues the same way (Fieser, 2006).  Using the above moral philosophies to structure your ethics and moral standards provides the bases for sound business decisions.  Your business decisions will reflect company trustworthiness, honesty, well-being for others as well as the community, compliance with the law, fidelity to professional responsibilities and many other practices.  The main reason ethics and business decisions go hand-in-hand is satisfied customers and satisfied stock holders.  Without both you have no business.  

Answer 3

"If you cannot join them, beat them. If you cannot beat them, join them."

- Confucius.