Transcript BEJ L1 Introd BE June16 File

Introduction to BE
BEJ L1 William Sin
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Criteria of Rightness and Wrongness
Ought to do/ Ought to avoid doing
Relation between people
Affect our judgement of someone
Relate to punishment
Conscience, goodness
Not totally subjective
Some objectivity
ETHICS
BUSINESS
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Motive to make profits
Exchange of goods and services
Activities of the Market
Production activities
Flow of capitals
BUSINESS
• Can we make sense of this concept?
• Is it an oxymoron? Why not? Or, why it will be one?
• What are its concerns?
ETHICS
• What did Lancome do?
• Why did they do it?
• What was wrong with their action?
香港電台：范太認為Lancôme事件屬商業決定
藝人何韻詩被內地環球時報點名批評後，遭法國化妝品牌
Lancôme取消活動。
全國人大常委范徐麗泰出席講座後，被問到環球時報的做法會
否打壓香港的言論自由。她回應說，有關事件是商業決定，她
看不到對方打壓香港的言論自由，不能因為不喜歡某些言論，
就批評對方打壓，既然香港有言論自由，應該尊重別人的言論
自由。
2. Who should be
the Olympic Torch
Bearer for HK?
http://www.pri.org/stories/2012-07-25/bbc-journalist-who-lostleg-iraq-carries-olympic-torch
• Why can’t Nat Chan represent HK’s athletes?
• Do TVB have the right to decide who to carry
the torch for HK?
• How about the fact that TVB has paid a large
sum of money to sponsor this activity?
3. Tax matters: Where have you put
your money? Local or Overseas?
Where does the money
come from? What is the
purpose of this maneuver?
Business Ethics: Ethical Problems that arise in
a business
Business ethics (also corporate ethics) … examines ethical
principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business
environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is
relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.
(Wikipedia/SEP)
Issues of right and wrong
“Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities,
and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed.”
(p.5, Crane and Matten)
What can you think of in relation to
Business Ethics?
What is a corporation?
1. It is an artificial person in the eyes of law. They have rights and responsibilities as
people do in society.
2. It is owned by shareholders, but exists independently of them. Individual
shareholders are not responsible for the debts and damages caused by the
corporation.
3. Managers and directors have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the investment of
shareholders.
Crane and Matten, Business Ethics, p. 47
Milton Friedman: Increase Profit
“In a free-enterprise, private-property system, a corporate executive is an employee
of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That
responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which
generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic
rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical
custom.” “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” (1970)
MF: Other people’s money
For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social
objective of preventing inflation, even though a price increase would be in the best interests of the
corporation. Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best
interests of the corporation or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of
improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore"
unemployed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing
poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general
social interest.
Child
labor
Merino
Mulesing
Windshield
Building
“Business and Ethics do not mix”?
Or if they mix at all – like Caring For Community (商界展關懷) –
businessmen do community service for the sake of the corporations’
public image (“window dressing”).
They do it when it will benefit the company in the long run.
Strictly speaking, such actions are not moral actions at all. (Motive
matters!)
“The Myth of Amoral Business”
According to the myth, however, businesses and people in business are not explicitly
concerned with ethics. They are not unethical or immoral; rather, they are amoral
insofar as they feel that ethical considerations are inappropriate in business. After all,
business is business. (Richard De George Business Ethics, Prentice Hall, 1995, p. 5)
Four Moral Concepts
公義 Justice
人權 Rights
道德錯誤 Wrongness
責任 Duty
善事/善舉 Charity
Rights, Duty, Wrongness and Charity
Wrong: Punishable in some ways
Duty: That it will be wrong if someone does not perform the action.
Rights: That society can (use force to) coerce the person to perform the
action.
Charity: That society may praise the person if he does it; and he may not
be blamed if he fails to do it.
JS Mill (1) On Justice
“When we think that a person is bound in justice to do a thing, it is an ordinary form of
language to say, that he ought to be compelled to do it. We should be gratified to see the
obligation enforced by anybody who had the power. If we see that its enforcement by law
would be inexpedient, we lament the impossibility, we consider the impunity given to injustice
as an evil, and strive to make amends for it by bringing a strong expression of our own and the
public disapprobation to bear upon the offender.”
(Mill, “Utilitarianism”, Chapter 5)
JS Mill (2) On Wrongness
“We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be
punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-
creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.”
(Mill, “Utilitarianism”, Chapter 5)
JS Mill (3) On Duty
“It is a part of the notion of Duty in every one of its forms, that a person may rightfully
be compelled to fulfil it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person, as one
exacts a debt. Unless we think that it may be exacted from him, we do not call it his
duty..”
(Mill, “Utilitarianism”, Chapter 5)
JS Mill (4) On Charity
“There are other things, on the contrary, which we wish that people should do, which
we like or admire them for doing, perhaps dislike or despise them for not doing, but
yet admit that they are not bound to do; it is not a case of moral obligation; we do not
blame them, that is, we do not think that they are proper objects of punishment.”
(Mill, “Utilitarianism”, Chapter 5)
Reasons to care
1. Great Impacts: As powerful social actors, corporations can caused
great harm to society. They have also great social impacts.
Corporations should be cautious of how they act so that they will not
create great social problems.
2. Reliance on the support of some social conditions: Corporations rely on
the contribution of a much wider set of constituencies, or stakeholders in
society (such as consumers, suppliers, local communities), rather than
just shareholders, and hence have a duty to take into account the
interests and goals of these stakeholders as well as those of
shareholders.