SOLOMON ISLANDS NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

BU671: Business Ethics & Corporate Governance

SEMESTER 2, 2018

TOPIC 1b: INTRODUCTION

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General Information:
• Lecturer/Tutor: Vincent D. Nomae
• Phone: 7472441
• Email: vdnomae@gmail.com

• Class Periods:
• Lecture: Wednesday, 11.30am-12.30pm, Lecture Theatre
• Tutorial: Group (A/B), Friday 8am to 10.15am, Ex Library
• Tutorial: Group (C), Friday 10.30-11.30am, B2
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INTRODUCTION (general concepts):

• “Ethics” – comes from the Latin word ‘Ethics’ & Greek word
‘Ethikos
• deals with Character’, science of conduct, OR certain
standard of human conduct and morals.
• A systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of
right and wrong behavior. Ethics is a mass of moral principles
or set of values about what is right or wrong, true or false, fair
or unfair, proper or improper
• Ethical - what is right
• Unethical - what is wrong
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MEANING & DEFINITIONS ETHICS:
• There are different views of the Ethics
• But in short, ethics goes beyond the immediate facts that pertain to a moral
question, “What the situation is”; but it addresses the question of what ought to
be?
• The ethical, (the right thing to do), is an action that best serves the ideas of honesty,
integrity, morality and good management practices
• The inner content of individual, the character of individual can lead ethical
individuality to ethical collectivity.
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Why learning ethics is important?
1. To know of its role in shaping the individuals behaviour for human conduct to keep
the peace
2. To define the greatest good of man and establish a standard for the same.
3. To help us establish moral standards/norms of behavior and to apply judgement
upon human behavior based on these standard and norms.
4. To help us prescribe recommendations about Do’s and Don’ts.
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Ethics in morality
• They relate to “right” and “wrong” and can be used interchangeably
• But ethics refer to rules provided by external sources
• Codes of conducts at workplace
• Principles in religions
• And Morality refers to individual’s own principles regarding “right” and “wrong”
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Concepts
• Autonomous – having the freedom to rule or govern itself or manage its own affairs
• Heteronomous – being influenced or controlled by forces outside of you
• Theonomous - believing that society should be ruled by divine rules (Theo = god,
Nomous =law)

Ethics according to philosophical teachers

• Plato – happiness and wellbeing is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct
and virtues are the requisites (necessity) and dispositions (right mind and conduct)
needed to attain it.
• Aristotle – ethics is built on naturalism and self realisation.
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Moral – ability to tell right from wrong, or principle that governs right and
wrong (internal)
E.g. Thou shall not kill or being honest
Ethics – rules to do right things (external)
e.g codes of conduct at work place
Values – personal beliefs from within that makes you decide on what is good
and what is bad.
e.g. hard work, reliability, honesty, commitment
Ground rules of ethics
• Since rules are not norms or principles, they must be practical or easily put to
practice
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Fairness
• Making quality judgments, or being just, which are free from discrimination. Eg.
Accept a $3.00 bus fares from everyone of them
Value at work
• Principles which are part of who are you when performing your duty
• E.g. honesty, self respect, respect for others, dependability…
Unfair conduct
• Conduct by employer when providing promotion, demotion or training to an employee
• E.g. A and E qualify for promotion, but A is promoted whilst E is demoted.
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Honesty in Conduct
• Showing positive and virtuous (worthy) attributes (characteristics) of truthfulness,
integrity, loyalty, fairness, sincerity, straightforwardness
• Absence of cheating, lying, theft etc

System Classification of Ethics

• Descriptive ethics: Study of people’s belief about morality. This is also called
Comparative Ethics. What do people think is right?
• Such-and-such IS the case.
• Normative ethics: Also known as Prescriptive ethics, is the study of ethical theories that
prescribe or determine how people ought to act.
• Such-and-such OUGHT to be the case
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Ethics by norms or principles

• Ethics which are by norm or principles are those which are in practice in accordance
with the rules of or standards for RIGHT conduct/practice
Casuistic ethics
• Reasoning used to resolve moral problems by applying theoretical rules from a
particular instance to the new instance. A rule-based reasoning
• E.g: Casuistic agrees that lying is morally wrong, but may also argue that lying is
the best moral choice to save. Saving life is moral.
Situation ethics
• Moral decision making is contextual or dependent on a set of circumstances
• Making something that might have been immoral before, immoral today
• E.g: going to kill the mass murderer before he kills hundreds of innocent people
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Deontological ethics
• Rule-based judgement of a moral act according to ethics rules
Ethics of responsibility
• An individual is accountable for fulling his civic or public duty that will benefit the
entire community or society.
Medical ethics
• Moral principles that apply values to the practice of clinical medicines and scientific
research.
• E.g. treat all people equally and equitably, or respect the patient’s right, or apply the
duty ‘to do good’, or ‘not to do bad’.
Journalistic ethics
• Moral principles that apply values to the practice of conducting journalism.
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Teaching ethics
• Moral principles that guide teachers to be motivated by a universal respect (same
respect) and care for human life, thereby promoting learning, development and
building for all children and pupils.
Legal ethics
• The minimum standards of appropriate conduct within the legal profession by the legal
professionals
• E.g, lawyers should NOT be paid to apply less force of the law when taking the case.
Political ethics
• The practice of making moral judgement of about political action and political
agents/institutions
• E.g, not buying voters is a moral action
Business ethics
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END!

BU671: Business Ethics & Corporate Governance

SEMESTER 2, 2018

TOPIC1 B: INTRODUCTION