Ethical Theories

Use three philosophical theories from Chapter 4 to analyze whether it is more important for a business to be ethical or lawful. Provide one example of a situation in which it seems to be more important for a business to be ethical rather than lawful, and one example of a situation in which it seems more important for a business to be lawful rather than ethical.

Justice ethics is based on the concept of fairness. This theory is closely related to deontol¬ogy and the rights of the individual. The U.S. legal system has a strong grounding in pro¬cedural justice and is focused on judicial process. Many of our constitutional rights protect the integrity of the legal process and ensure that all people are treated fairly in the courts. We also find this philosophy in the procedures and consistent rules that businesses create for their employees and other stakeholders. In a similar fashion, appellate judges decide cases that set precedents that apply to all of us. They must balance doing justice for the individuals involved in the case with the ramifications of how decisions will affect future case law and society as a whole.

Virtue ethics looks at the basic values one needs to develop to have a good moral char¬acter. We develop these traits by making personal commitments and practicing them in our lives. Some of the virtues we can encourage are honesty, truth, trust, tolerance, kind¬ness, diligence, and self-restraint. We can learn as well as absorb these qualities from our parents, religion, and schools or consciously choose to strive to be virtuous persons. This philosophy has practical application in the business world because we can model, encour¬age, and reward these traits among our employees and within our companies.

Like ethical absolutism, religious fundamentalism as a theory of ethics relies on the exis¬tence of certain immutable truths. Unlike ethical absolutism, however, which requires that these values be discovered