BSB111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Relativism, Charles Bazerman, Harvard Business Review
Week 1 – The nature of ethics
1. What is ethics?
• Every human being thinks about how to live a good life and how to make the right sorts of
decisions. We think about what makes our actions right or wrong, and what makes a person
good or bad.
• When we investigate these issues and try to understand them, we are studying ethics (also
know as moral philosophy).
• There are three types of questions we ask when we investigate ethics:
o Meta-ethical questions
o Descriptive questions
o Normative questions
Approaches to investigating ethics
Meta-ethical questions (about ethical concepts)
◦ Are there moral facts?
◦ Is ethics relative to individuals and cultures?
Descriptive questions (what actually occurs)
◦ What factors encourage unethical behaviour in business?
◦ Which companies are more likely to have a code of ethics?
Normative questions (how we ought to act, or what sort of people we should be)
◦ Should businesses pay accountants to reduce their tax?
◦ Should employees always report unethical behaviour in the workplace?
What is business ethics?
Business ethics is simply the study of ethics in business.
Questions of right and wrong, or good and bad, in relation to the world of business
Our focus in this unit is on normative questions relating to ethical issues in business, and
different ways we could arrive at answers to these questions
However, we will also touch on a few meta-ethical and descriptive issues.
Note that the tes ethis ad oalit oth efe to eaiig issues elated to
right/wrong, good/bad, so for our purposes they are used interchangeably
Business ethics at 3 different levels
Ethical issues in business can be examined at three different levels:
◦ The individual level: How individuals make ethical choices, the characteristics of an
ethical individual
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Document Summary
Week 1 the nature of ethics: what is ethics, every human being thinks about how to live a good life and how to make the right sorts of decisions. Normative questions (how we ought to act, or what sort of people we should be) Business ethics is simply the study of ethics in business. Questions of right and wrong, or good and bad, in relation to the world of business. Our focus in this unit is on normative questions relating to ethical issues in business, and different ways we could arrive at answers to these questions. However, we will also touch on a few meta-ethical and descriptive issues. Note that the te(cid:396)(cid:373)s (cid:858)ethi(cid:272)s(cid:859) a(cid:374)d (cid:858)(cid:373)o(cid:396)alit(cid:455)(cid:859) (cid:271)oth (cid:396)efe(cid:396) to e(cid:454)a(cid:373)i(cid:374)i(cid:374)g issues (cid:396)elated to right/wrong, good/bad, so for our purposes they are used interchangeably. Ethical issues in business can be examined at three different levels:
