Report on Philosophy in Ethics

Ethics is also referred to as moral philosophy. The domain of ethics includes recommending, defending, and systematizing concepts and wrong and right behavior. Today, philosophers normally separate theories of ethics into three subjects including applied ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics. Metaethics is responsible for investigating where principles of ethics come from and what they actually mean. It answers different questions such as whether they are social inventions or not and do they include more than just individual emotions’ expression (Darwall, 2018). 

It also answers to all those questions which focus on part of reason in different ethical judgments, God’s will, problems of universal truth, and the meaning of terms included in ethics. A more practical form is taken by normative ethics, which is to obtain moral standards regulating wrong and right conduct. They might include articulating noble and good habits which must be acquired by people, the duties which should be followed, or the results of behavior on other people. Lastly, applied ethics is concerned with evaluating controversial issues like war, capital punishment, environmental concerns, and abortion etc.

Societal ethics

Philosophy is prevalent in society in the form of normative ethics. It is concerned with moral standards which regulate wrong or right conduct. It can be said that it is a search for a normative rule or principle: People should be doing to others what they need from others. For instance, if a person does not want his car to be stolen then he should also not steal the car of a person. And if a person wants others to feed him when he is starving then he should feed all others who are starving on the streets. Depending on the same style of reasoning, a person can theoretically determine which action is wrong and which one is right. Thus, on the basis of Golden Rule, it would be wrong for a person to kill, assault, victimize, harass, and lie to others. This rule is actually a reference of a normative theory which develops an individual principle against which actions are judged. Other theories of this domain concentrate on specific foundational rules or a group of good traits of behavior (Machan, 2010).

Business Ethics

A business can be referred to as a productive organization with the objective of creating services and good for profits and sales. It is a process or an activity. An individual entity, an organization, or a person carries out activities with another person like the exchange of a service or a good for a valuable consideration. Thus, business ethics can be recognized as a research ethical dimensions of commercial activities and productive organizations. This involves ethical analysis of the consumption, sale, marketing, distribution, and production of services and goods.

In business ethics, questions are relevant and significant to everyone. It is due to the fact that almost all people carry out business, which means to engage in commercial transactions. In addition, many people spend a significant amount of time attempting to engage in, engaged in, as a part of organizations or on our own. The world in which people are living is shaped by the business activity whether it is ill or good (Painter-Morland & Bos, 2011).

The domain of business ethics is quite vast. Philosophers from Rawls to Aristotle have defended their perspectives on topics that can be recognized or understood as an important part of this domain. Now, there is a minimum of five journals which are dedicated to this domain. Moreover, work in the field of business ethics appears in journals of social science and mainstream philosophy. A way of thinking about this field is with respect to agents’ moral obligations engaged in the activity of business. Individual people are the moral agents and the answer to the question of firms is explained in terms of corporate moral agency. In this term, corporate is referring to an organization as an authorized entity but to a group of people. Precisely, the question if organizations are morally responsible and moral agents recognized as qua firms. They are not recognized as the aggregates of firm members.

Social Responsibility

Philosophy is involved in social responsibility in terms of ethics as well. In fact, it can be said that it is an ethical theory pointing out that people are responsible for carrying out their civic duties. It means that actions of people must be beneficial to the society. And there must be an equilibrium between environmental-societal welfare and economic growth. With the maintenance of this equilibrium, social responsibility is achieved. The concept of ethics and social responsibility applies both in group and individual capacities. It must be integrated into normal daily decisions and actions, especially the ones which will have an influence on the environment or people. In groups, a code of ethics and social responsibility is implemented during interactions with individuals and other groups.

A system of this concept has been developed by business which is customized to their organizational environment. With the maintenance of social responsibility in the organization, both the environment and the workers are recognized as equivalent to the economics of the organization. Maintaining it within an organization makes sure that environmental and societal integrity is protected. Normally, an action and a decision’s ethical implications are overlooked for benefits and gains. Frequently, this develops itself in organizations which try to overlook environmental regulations. The interference of government is necessary in such a case (Knobe & Doris, 2010).

Unfortunately, social responsibility is not practiced by many organizations and it adversely affects both the environment and society.

References of Philosophy in Ethics

Darwall, S., 2018. Philosophical Ethics: An Historical and Contemporary Introduction. s.l.:Routledge.

Knobe, J. & Doris, J. M., 2010. Responsibility.

Machan, T. R., 2010. Moral philosophy and society. Review of Contemporary Philosophy, Volume 16, pp. 104-135.

Painter-Morland, M. & Bos, R. T., 2011. Business ethics and continental philosophy. s.l.:Cambridge University Press.