What is business ethics

What is Business Ethics

Ethics, the search for ‘a good way of being’ for a wise course of action, as it could be practiced by business firms is called business ethics.Ethics in business deals with the ethical path business firms ought to adopt. Afflicting the least suffering to humans and the nature in its entirety, achieving the greatest net benefit to the society and economy enriching the capability of the system in which it is functioning., being fair in all its dealings with its proximate and remote stakeholders, being prepared to correct its mal-habits and nurturing an enduring virtuous corporate character in totality, can be called business ethics. It is often suggested from extended utilitarian/ consequentialist position that businesses can often attain short-lived gains by acting in an unethical fashion; however, such behaviours tend to undermine the economy over time. For those who uphold the principles of virtue ethics, all that matters is corporations maintaining character of honesty, fairness and humaneness than being ethical for the sake of better consequences. On the other hand experts of deontological ethics and virtue ethicspostulate that what matters is the motive to be ethical than the consequential fallout Jacques Cory, a noted business ethicist observes, “companies should behave ethically and be profitable in parallel, and even if ethics diminishes the profitability of the company, they should still behave ethically”. Seen from the Kantian Ethical perspective Business has to consider its remote and proximate stakeholders as ends in themselves and not merely as means toward some other end.. A business becomes ethical by assuming the responsibility of ‘’’translating’’’ the abstract ethical injunctions into series of obligations. However, while translating, we do not just abide by the ‘’’a priori’’’ ethical injunctions or codes rather respond to the situation in its contextual singularity pragmatically choosing the best alternative course of response from the multiple possibilities. In other words, ethics is a matter of 'responsibility in the experience of absolute decisions made outside of knowledge or given norms'.