1.5 ETHICS AND ETHOS
Ethics is a
vast
field of study that really addresses only one question:
How should we live our lives?
The question of human well-being
ultimately
focuses on how we should live. But while this may seem a simple question, it is perhaps the most fundamental question any human can ask.
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We can begin to answer it by reflecting on the nature of
philosophical
ethics.
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Within the Western tradition philosophical ethics is often trace to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates.
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There is perhaps no better characterization of ethics than Socrates' statement that it "deals with no small thing, but with how we ought to live." Like all cultures, the Greeks had a set of beliefs, attitudes, and values that guided their lives. The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos, meaning "customary" or "con¬ventional." Most Greeks would have answered Socrates by claiming that we ought to live an ethical life. Like most people in other cultures, an ethical life for the Greeks would have been a life lived according to the beliefs, attitudes, and values that were customary in their own culture. Often, these customary values are connected to a culture s religious worldview. To be ethical, in the sense of ethos, is to conform to what is typically done, to obey the conventions and rules of one's society and religion. In this sense, ethics would be identical to ethos.
Taking its lead from Socrates, philosophical ethics is not content to accept this as an answer to the question of how we should live. We said earlier that each one of us answers ethical questions every day by how we choose to live our lives. For many people, this choice is made implicitly by conforming to the ethos and customs of their culture. Philosophical ethics denies that simple conformity and obedience are the best guides to how we should live. From the very beginning, philosophy rejects authority as the source of ethics and has, instead, defended the use of reason as the foundation of ethics. Philosophical ethics seeks a reasoned analysis of custom and a reasoned defense of how we ought to live.
Philosophical ethics distinguishes what people do value from what people should value. What people do in fact value is the domain of such social sciences as sociology, psychology, and anthropology. As a branch of philosophy, however, ethics asks us to step back and rationally evaluate the customary beliefs and values that people do hold. Philosophical ethics requires us to abstract our¬selves from what is normally or typically done, and reflect upon whether or not what is done, should be done, and whether what is valued, should be valued. The difference between what is valued and what ought to be valued is the difference between ethos and ethics.
As a branch of philosophical ethics, business ethics asks us to step back from our daily decisions, step back from the ethos of business, to reflect upon how business decisions affect our lives. In what ways do the practices and deci¬sions made within business promote or undermine human well-being? Raising these questions does not imply that what is normally being done is unethical. After examining ethical issues in business, we may end up defending the same values and making the same decisions that we would have originally. But what philosophical ethics does require is a conscious reflection and analysis of those beliefs and values upon which we act. Again, to rely on Socratic wisdom, philo¬sophical ethics assumes that "the unexamined life is not worth living." As we proceed through an examination of business ethics, we are really doing little more than reflecting upon daily events and echoing Socrates' question: How ought we to live?
how ought we to live this fundamental question of ethics can be interpreted in two way
this first sense of ethic the concern of how each of us should live our lives
Business ethics addresses both kinds of questions. Questions of individ¬ual morality will be a major theme throughout this text. One of the most fun¬damental goals of business ethics is to provide opportunities for students to step back from the immediate concerns of day-to-day life and ask: "What kind of person should I be?" "What should I do? "What kind of life will I live?" "What would I have done if I were in the position of an auditor at Enron?" Is the kind of greed, aggressiveness, and selfishness exhibited at Enron a model for my life?
No doubt most of us at most times of our lives are too concerned with more immediate issues such as completing an assigned task, paying our bills, and having fun, to consciously step back and ask about the meaning and value of what we do. But this is what philosophical ethics demands. Morality takes the larger perspective. Imagine late in your life looking back to reflect on the kind of life you have led and asking: "Has this life been worth living? Am I proud of my life? Am I proud or ashamed of the person I have been? Has this been a full and meaningf