What is Corporate Ethics?

What is Ethics?

Ø According to Patrick J. Sheeran (1993), ethics is a set of principles, rules and regulations that govern and control the activities and behavior of human beings. This implies that whatever rule created which has the capacity to influence the way in which people behave is likened to be ethics. Thus, the principles should be known, established, stated and understood by the people to whom it applies.

Ø On his own, Berkowitz (1964) defined ethics as morals and standards of members or a people within a given society. Here, a new concept-morals- has been initiated. This scholar was closer to home when he noted morals as been significant in the study of ethics.

Ø If we should consider the two classical definitions, we can have a strong merger which drives home to what we want. By that, we can define ethics as a set of moral principles that govern the activities, behavior of people in a given society.

Ø Generally, what makes ethics worth studying is ‘morals’. These morals however reflect in human action without which ethical study remains impotent and empty. You cannot divorce ethics from morality.

Ø While both concepts remain conjoined, the umbilical cord is ‘human action’. This implies that for moral to take place, and for it to be understood as moral, there must be an action. Anything acted can be action, but then, it is not subject to ethical reasoning until it is acted by human.

Ø Thus, human inaction (as against human action) is herein referred to as action deemed not to act. Thus, an action which is perceived to have been acted from full and complete human consciousness is considered to be a human action.

Ø Morals have to do with the knowledge of good and evil. Thus ethics implies general acquisition and application of moral knowledge in everyday life.

Ø Corporate ethics by extension then implies the acquisition of moral knowledge applicable to corporate life.

Ø Ethics is the study of the values and codes that compel and justify the attitudes and activities of men.

Ø While morality remains as it were, the knowledge of whats good, ethics is itself the study of morality.

Ø From the academic perspective, ethics is not believed to be action which were perceived to be right but actions which share common agreement among people regarding it’s rightness or wrongness.

Ø Thus, ethics is not about what ‘is’ but what ‘should’ be done.

Ø One key concept that reflects significantly in the study of ethics is ‘morality’.

Ø Berkowitz defined morals as “evaluations of action believed by members of a given society to be right”, (p.44)

Ø Thus, an action which has not gained consensus among people is not morality, in the eyes of the people involved.

Ø Thus, a moraly conscious person is one who has gained full knowledge of what should be done and should not be done in the society. Now, the question comes, how does knowledge emanate? How does man (an indeed the society) generate, adopt and apply knowledge about morals applicable to the society?

Ø Summarily, how does ethical knowledge evolve?

Philosophical Foundation Of Ethics

Ø This section will first of all answer the question: how does knowledge evolve? What are the sources of knowledge? How does man gain certain knowledge of what he should or should not do?

Ø Ethics as a field of study is rooted in philosophy. It generally has to do with the principles and morals that govern and control human actions.

Ø But to understand how these moral knowledge evolve, we need to understand how the knowledge come.

Ø This takes us to the study of knowledge which is philosophy.

Ø By definition, philosophy is the love of knowledge.

Ø Ancient philosophers such as Thales, Pamanendes etc had their primary focus on the study of the sun, the moon, the earth, the firmament, the stars etc.

Ø Socrates was the first philosopher to focus on human being. He drifted ancient philosophy from Cosmology (which is the study of the universe) to Ontology (which is the study of the nature and origin of beings). This was hypothesized in Socrates’ common maxim which says “man know thyself; an unexamined life is not worth living”.

Ø Socrates transited this academic novelty of his to his students who advanced in it. One of them was Plato.

Ø Plato, Socrates’ student added to this new dimension of philosophy regarding the study of man. He introduced what he termed the ‘supersensible world’.

Ø Supersensible world is the theory of innate idea which argues that human’s souls were in existence and the knowledge with which humans are born existed with them in the supersensible world, before they were born.

Ø Scholars have argued that Plato’s argument is relative to the religious theory of predestination; where man is predestined to be whatever he becomes long before he is born.

Ø So whether you are a carpenter or a doctor or a lawyer or a builder or a teacher, Plato argued that all of those were coded in the suprasensible world before you were born. Strongly, Plato was of the view that man’s moral existence must move around his suprasensible programme, thus if you were programmed to be a lawyer, you aren’t doing better in any other field than law. If you were programmed to be a carpenter, you aren’t doing better elsewhere than in carpentry.

Ø The implication of this is that man’s moral orientation is born with him. So he sees nothing different, he perceives no new moral knowledge while alive save that with which he was born.   

Ø Aristotle, Plato’s student, and grand student of Socrates, joined the Ontology debate with a new argument.

Ø He introduced ‘Empiricism’ which is the foundation of empirical sciences. By definition, Empiricism is the science or philosophy of evidence. It believes whatever is should be proven to be. It implies you exist because you exist. You are here because you are here.

Ø He argued that knowledge is obtained upon birth and that “man at birth is a tabular rasa” (clean slate).

Ø Aristotle’s argument holds that man knows nothing before birth. So, to him, knowledge does not precede conception. Upon birth, knowledge is built by consistent transfer of signals across human senses up to the intellect which creates an impression about it and registers it.

Ø These signals pass through biologically-created senses found in human organs which include ear, tongue, nose, eye and skin.

Ø These signals or senses include hearing, taste, smell, sight and touch. They are transferred to the Intellect through the organs.

Ø The Intellect registers the signals and creates universal knowledge and ideas with them. So, whatever becomes the inclination or build of the sense or signal from the first impression becomes universal to the man to whom the signal was given.

Ø The implication of Aristotle’s Empiricism is that knowledge obtained via these five channels or senses and registered at the Intellect form the foundation for value systems, morals, attitudes, belief systems etc.

Ø With the knowledge, human beings justify their actions. They make choices between good and evil, right and wrong.

Ø The acquisition, application of these knowledge is therefore called ethics.

Why Study Ethics?

Ø To enhance and develop values in the public environment and public service

Ø To create dimensional approach to civil service in order to improve excellence in service delivery

Ø To bring unity in public service

Ø To guarantee seamless co-operation among corporate and government organizations

Ø To maintain the practice of merit styles and standards in public organizations