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Business Ethics 301

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APPROACH TO ETHICS
Business Ethics
Scott C. White

22 September 2015
Trident University International

The definition of Ethics according to dictionary.com is “(n) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture; (p.v.) the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.; (v) that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” And according to DoDD 5500.7(2007) “Ethics are standards by which one should act based on values.” According to Rod Powers (2015), Values are core beliefs such as duty, honor, and integrity that motivate attitudes and actions. Not all values are ethical values (integrity is; happiness is not). By these definitions ethics are determined by the group or individual and their personal standards. Which makes developing a set of ethical guidelines more difficult when it relates to businesses. Religious beliefs, education and even racial upbringing can influence what an individual sees as right and wrong. As such creating a set of ethical standards is hard unless it is based on a common point of interest or theme. The military uses their values system as part of their ethics programs. Citing Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal courage as the army’s values, each soldier is expected to follow those values in all actions they take. In business, it takes the company to establish a set of values or standards that it expects the employees to follow. Those standards may reflect the leaders of that company as Daniel Terris’ book (2005) point out, ‘the oldest and most persistent conception of business ethics in the United States focuses on the

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