Ethical Theories In Human Rights Philosophy Essay

estimable Theories In Human Rights Philosophy Essayunderlying the currently potent job and management theories. Ethics may be viewed as the study of human conduct with an focus on determination of right and wrong (Fraedrich and Ferrell, 1992). Together with this, it is the assumption that management must(prenominal) adhere to a narrow version of positivism that excludes any reference to intention (Ghoshal, 2005). According to (Mallor et al., 2010), for centuries, religious and secular scholars take a leak explored the meaning of human existence and attempted to define a good life. Ethical theories and principles argon the foundations of estimable analysis be own they argon the viewpoints from which guidance flowerpot be obtained along the pathway to a decision. The intravenous feeding ethical theories according to the text are rights conjecture, justice theory, utileism, and profit maximisation.The rights theory covers a range of ethical philosophies that holds that tru e human rights are important and must be respected by otherwise rescript and her rights. Rights are also considered to be ethically correct and legitimate given that a large or creation opinion population endorses them. Few rights theorists are stringent deontologists, and one of the few is the eighteenth century philosopher by fig Immanuel Kant and his theory is known as the Kantianism. Kant viewed humans as moral fareors that are free to make choices and he also believed that humans are able to judge the morality of any action by applying his noned categorical imperative. One of his formulations of the categorical imperative is Act scarce on that maxim whereby at the selfsame(prenominal) time you can leave that it shall become a universal law. The meaning of it is that we judge an action by applying it universally. The most important strength of rights theory is that it protects fundamental rights, unless some greater right takes precedence. A study criticism of the ri ghts theory deal with the near absolute yet relative value of the rights protected, making it rough to articulate and administer a comprehensive rights theory.The Justice theory which came into limelight by John Rawls in 1971 when he published his book entitled A theory of Justice, the philosophical underpinning for the bureaucratic welfare state. He reasoned that it was right for governments to redistri alonee wealth in order to assist the poor and the destitute. Furthermore, Rawls behaveed this school of thought in his Greatest Equal Liberty Principle each someone has an equal right to prefatorial rights and liberties. He further limited the principle with the Difference Principle brotherly inequalities are acceptable except if they cannot be eliminated without making the worst-off class even out worse off. Rawlss justice theory has application in the business context which requires decision makers to be guided by fairness and impartiality. The strength of Rawlss justice t heory lies in its basic premise, the protection of those who are least advantaged in society. The ethical dilemma for managers is to determine the fair happens and procedures for distri moreovering outcomes to stakeholders. Managers must not give people they like bigger raises than they give to people they do not like, for example, or bend the rules to help their favorites. On the other hand, if employees want managers to act fairly toward them, then employees need to act fairly toward their companies and work hard and be loyal. Similarly, customers need to act fairly toward a company if they look it to be fair to them-something people who illegally copy digital media should consider. The criticism that justice theory with the rights theory is that it treats equality as an absolute, without examining the costs of producing equality, including reduced incentives for cosmos, entrepreneurship and product.Utilitarianism entails a decision maker to maximize utility for society as a w hole. Maximizing utility means achieving the highest level of satisfactions over dissatisfactions which means that a person must consider the benefits and costs of her actions to everyone in society. A utilitarian will take action only if the benefits of the action to society outweigh the societal costs of the action. There are two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism settle each act separately, assessing a single acts benefit and its cost to societys members. Rule utilitarianism judges actions by a rule that over the long run maximizes benefits over cost. The strength of utilitarianism as a guide for ethical conduct is that it is well-to-do to articulate the standard of conduct which coincides with values of most modern countries like the USA who is capitalist in nature by focusing on total brotherly satisfactions, benefits, wealth and welfare. In general under capitalism, the interests of shareholders are put above those of em ployees, so production will move abroad. This is generally regarded as being an ethical choice because in the long run, the alternative, domestic production might cause the business to collapse and go bankrupt. If this happens, all of the companys stakeholders will suffer-not just its employees. According to the utilitarian view, the decision that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people is best. In this case, that means outsourcing the jobs. The criticism of utilitarianism is that it is rugged to measure ones own pleasures, pains, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, let alone those of all of societys members.Profit maximization as an ethical theory requires a decision maker to maximize a businesss long-run winnings deep down the limits of the law. This has been found on the laissez faire theory of capitalism first expressed by Adam Smith in the 18th century and more recently promoted by economists such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Profit maximization is closely related to utilitarianism, but it varies essentially in how ethical decisions are made. Profit maximization optimizes total social utility by narrowing the actors focus, requiring the decision maker to make a decision that merely maximizes profits for himself or his organization. The strengths of profit maximization results in ethical conduct because it requires societys members to act deep down the constraints of the law and a profit maximizer, therefore, acts ethically by complying with societys mores as expressed in its laws. The criticism of profit maximizer is that if profit maximization results in an efficient allocation of societys re writers and maximization of total social welfare, it does not concern itself with how wealth is allocated within Society.An ethical theory that was not found in the text is that of rationalism, which this ethical theory focuses mainly on norms. The moral rationalism is that in which the decisive factor of the truth is not sensory bu t clever and deductive, and it has its major proponent in Emmanuel Kant (Llano, 2002). Mr. Kant attempted to change our everyday, solve, rational knowledge of morality into philosophical knowledge. He went after a technique of using practical reason to reach conclusions which are able to be useful to the world of experience. Kant is also known for his theory that there is a single moral arrangement which he called the Categorical Imperative, and derived from the perception of duty. He further stated that these moral norms must be obeyed in all situations and circumstances if our behavior is to observe the moral law.In a way to improve unified governance and merged social responsibilities, according to Mallor et al., 2010, one can modify the corporate governance perplex to educate, motivate, and supervise executives and thereby improve corporate social responsibility. Corporate governance is the structure used to bear and manage business and affairs of the company towards enha ncing prosperity and corporate accountability. Corporate critics however did propose a wide rang of cures, all of which have been implemented to some degree and with varying degrees of success.Ethical codes Ethic codes in a way have been adopted by more large flocks and several industries to guide executives and other employees. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act required that a public company discloses whether it has adopted a code of ethics for elderly financial officers, and to disclose any changes in the code or waiver of the codes application. The codes can be viewed in two ways one sees the codes as genuine efforts to foster ethical behavior within a blotto or an industry while others view regards them as thinly disguised attempts to make the firm function better, to mislead the public into believing the firm behaves ethically, to prevent the passage of legislation that would impose stricter constraints on business, or to limit competition under the veil of ethical standards. Better e thical codes make clear that the corporation expects employees not to violate the law in a mistaken belief that loyalty to the corporation requires it. These kinds of codes work best, however, when a corporation also gives its employees an outlet for dealing with a superiors request to do an wrong act.Ethical instruction Some corporate organizations require their employees to enroll in classes that teach ethical decision-making. The intellection is that a manager trained in ethical conduct will recognize unethical actions onwards they are taken and deter herself and the corporation from the unethical acts. Majority of corporations in this present day express their dedication to ethical decision-making by an ethics officer who is not only responsible for ethical instruction, but also in charge of ethical supervision. The ethics officer tends to be a mentor or sounding board for all employees who face ethical issues.Greater Shareholder Role in Corporations As shareholders are the v ital stakeholders in a corporation in a capitalist economy, several corporate critics argue that businesses should be more attuned to shareholders ethical values and that shareholder control of the board of directors and executives should be increased. turn up suggests that sources of ethical dilemmas will continue to increase. To understand this assessment, it will be useful to look at four categories of conditions influencing ethical behavior global, social, organizational and individual.Global A variety of global conditions affect our lives and our society many are well-known to all of us. They include the increasing influence of cultural values good divers(prenominal) from those of our Anglo-Saxon heritage impacts of a complex global economy on local economic structures and our speedily increasing technological capacity to transfer and interact with the global community. Within the past few days we have watched the beginning of the development of a new world order that will be substantially different from our palpate of world order developed over the last half century. Among the implications resulting from this picture, two are especially important (1) we as a people no longer have a touch on sense of our role in the world or our control over it and (2) it has become increasingly acceptable, and even logical, to admit that we simply dont know what the appropriate response is. This era of rapid change has an indirect but important influence on our sense of ethical appropriateness.Social A more direct source of ethical conflicts is social change. Change has been so rapid that some have argued that we have lost our sense of values or that we must seek better mechanisms to resolve value conflicts. This line of reasoning is awry(p) for several reasons. First, value conflicts (and, therefore, ethical dilemmas) reflect our social and cultural fabric. Second, stakeholders have a relatively easy time gaining access to our policy making system therefore, val ue conflicts are very visible and, frequently, cause our problem-solving process to forge slow, painful compromises. These processes continue to represent one of the great comparative advantages of our society and should not be changed without sober reflection.Organizational Thirdly, we are witnessing rapid change in the nature and role of the public organization and concepts most administrative behavior. Organizational values are vital influence on the absolute majority of us thus far our organizational lives are becoming increasingly participatory, open, communicative and interactive. While I believe that the decline of organization hierarchy is among the more positive aspects of our society, it also signals a decline in another source of behavioral guidelines. Individual judgment, group dynamics and social interactions are replacing tralatitious rules of behavior dictated by the organization. We are also facing increasing conflicts between the bureaucratic ethos and the antia uthoritarian ethos (Hejka-Ekins, 1998). The bureaucratic ethos includes such traditional organizational standards as efficiency, competence, loyalty and accountability.Individual lastly, ethical anxieties are caused by changes at the individual level. In particular, individualism and materialism are at the present celebrated within major social institutions and have become a dominate ethos of the baby bust generation. Self-indulgence, greed, self-interest, and privatism are authentic components of the ethos of this generation (Frederickson, 1982).In order to improve the ethical climate of an organization, management must effectively communicate proper ethical behavior throughout the organization. Wimbush and Shephard (1984 637-647) reported that businesses annually spend an estimated $40 billion on the ethical behavior problems. Thus, pointing to the fact that ethical dimension of employees behavior has a clear impact on the profitability of the company. It is generally accepted th at customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors in prospered business strategy. Although a company must continue to develop, alter and adapt products to keep pace with customers changing desires and preferences. It must also seek to develop long-term relationships with customers and its stakeholders. By focusing on customer satisfaction, a company continually deepens the customers dependence on the company, and as the customers confidence grows, the firm gains a better savvy of how to serve the customer so the relationship may endure. Successful businesses provide an opportunity for customer feedback, which can engage the customer in a cooperative problem solving. As is often pointed out, a knowing customer will come back, but a disgruntled customer will tell others about his or her dissatisfaction with a company and discourage friends from dealing with it. When an organization has a strong ethical environment, it normally focuses on the core value of placing custo mers interest first. An ethical culture that focuses on customers incorporates the interests of all employees, suppliers, and other interest parties in decisions and actions. Employees working in an ethical environment support and contribute to the process of understanding customers demands and concerns. Ethical conduct towards customers builds a strong competitive position that has been shown to affect business performance and product innovation positively.