The Philosophy of Work and Work Ethics

 Damianus Abun

(The whole paper will be published in the Divine Word International Journal of Management and Humanities) 

Introduction

To understand work ethics, one should know the philosophy of work.  Without a proper understanding of the concept of work, one will only understand the moral norms of work which lead us to bias. Work ethics is a secular concept and has no association with any religious belief or norms. The purpose of this paper is to explain the philosophy of work and the concept of work ethics and its dimensions. After reading it, one must understand that work is our nature and a way of perfecting ourselves and it is not only a means for getting a paycheck.

The Philosophy of Work.  

The concept of work ethics can be understood well after one understands the philosophy of work. Because work ethics is about one’s attitude toward work and therefore it is closely related to the philosophy of work.  It concerns how we should look at or view work. Therefore, in this part, we are looking at the definition of work and how different philosophers view work. Dictionaries may provide us with a glimpse of the meaning of work which we will connect later to the philosophy of work according to different philosophers. Dictionary.com which originated from Oxford Languages define work as “activity involving mental or physical effort done to achieve a purpose or result". The same definition is also found in the Free Dictionary which defines work as "physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something. These definitions present the nature of work which is not only a physical activity but also a mental activity which includes works that do not demand physical movement but involve only mental activities that lead toward certain objectives or results. This definition is also found in Britannica's (2023) concept of work. It emphasizes physical and mental activity that should bring change as its objective, to attain something that one desires (Britannica, 2020). All definitions of work do not identify specifically what the purposes of work are which allows us the freedom to review different ideas from authors and philosophers about the purpose of work.   

Concerning the purpose of work, different authors and philosophers offer different views. Plato's concept of work can provide us with a glimpse that opens our views about the significance of work, how people should work and why they work. Plato classified the citizens based on their natural character and assigned work according to their natural capabilities to contribute to the welfare of the city-state (Cholbi, 2022). All citizens have to work to support the city-state. From Plato's way of assigning work to people according to their natural capabilities, one can have an idea about the nature of humans and the importance of work. By nature, human beings are workers, they are born to work and based on Plato's view of work, as cited by Cholbi (2022), the purpose of work is for the improvement of social and personal life or the perfection of the self. His view indicates that all members of the city-state must work to contribute not only to the betterment of society as a whole but it is also to the betterment of life as a person. Reading the concept of Plato, one can immediately interpret that the work is an instrument for social change and an individual's life change. Through work, a person contributes something good to society's development and also through work, a person can make their life better and more meaningful (Ward & King, 2017). The concept provides us with the idea that work has dual functions for the self and others or society. However, this concept is challenged by totalitarianism and capitalism. According to totalitarianism, the purpose of work is for the good of the community or state and in the case of capitalism, it is for private gain, therefore one can have a choice to work or not to work as pointed out by Little, (1948) and not for the perfection of the self. From these two views, the existence of a person is measured in terms of his/her contribution to the community or state and how much wealth he/she accumulates. Under the concept of totalitarianism and capitalism, a worker is a slave to the community or society and a wage slave because work is considered a way to obtain a means of life. As Richard (1998) pointed out many people have seen work as an occupation, a means to gain their livelihood and this concept has been dominating the concept of the market economy.

The confusing view of work results in unnatural working conditions and job dissatisfaction. A wrong philosophy of work views work as a means of getting a paycheck, getting more wealth and helping society or family. Schwartz (2022) pointed out that work as a means of getting money is false because this idea leads us to get the wrong notion about why people attend to their work. Management has been possessed by this wrong idea that employees show up for work when they are paid. This wrong idea is the reason why so many organizations continue to treat their employees as if they are motivated solely by paycheck (Nesterak, 2022). Resolving the different views of work, Little, (1948) offers an original view of work. He defines work in two senses which we are going to adapt in this paper. In a narrow sense, work is manual labour and in a broader sense, work is a deliberate production by man to change matter for man. Manual labour or any kind of actual operation on a matter is work since it is directly a change of matter. By working, one generates goods, be it material objects or experiences and state of mind (Cholbi, 2022) that others can value and enjoy in their own right. Thus, in many cases, a person or a worker is compensated not for the performance of labour as such but because their labour contributes to the production of goods that have objective value (Cholbi, 2022). This concept suggests that work involves, not only physical work but also the mental effort that directs those who change matter or who produce goods that are valued by others.

Concerning the purpose of work, Little (1948) pointed out that it is not only for the good of the community or state and not only for obtaining wages for a living but work is for the perfection of the self because, by nature, man is intended to be a worker as part of his natural purpose (Little, 1948) and therefore life without work is against human nature and a man by his/her nature is a worker and is his/her purpose and through work, man perfects his nature by doing some of the visible good in the material world. These concepts emphasize the point that work is a central life interest (Sharma and Rai, 2015). Thus, work is good in itself to the worker since it is his/her purpose to perfect himself/herself and not for the good of others or money and thus, he/she should be content with his/her achievement by doing a good job, even if he/she is not rewarded or praised because work is own reward.

The concept of work as presented by Little (1948) is contradictory to the contemporary concept of work. The contemporary view of work is always related to employment, as a means to get a paycheck through their labour. The current concepts of work undermine other kinds of work which are not always related to paycheck. Little (1948) provides us with a broader view of work because it opens our minds that work should not always be associated with employment to gain money for a living. Many people out there are not working for a paycheck and not for others or the community but they work for themselves. The value of work does not depend on its exchange value which depends on the appreciation of others and the money he/she receives in exchange for her/his work. If the value of work depends on its exchange value, then work becomes a burden and consequently, the worker does not enjoy doing it (Cholbi, 2022). If this is the case, then the value of work is determined by external value and has no intrinsic value. Aristotle as cited by Clark (2017) pointed out that the value of work is related to human rationality and work is an exercise of human rationality, in the sense that a human perfects himself/herself through work. Work is the realization of our nature as rational beings because, through work, human beings develop and exercise their rational power ((Elster 1989, Sayers 2005).

The Concept of Work Ethics

Understanding the philosophy of work helps us understand work ethics. Philosophically, work is a physical and mental effort and it is not an obligation to society and an instrument to earn a living but it is a means for self-perfection. Based on philosophy, man, and work are not separated but work is an integral part of man because work itself is the nature of man. By nature, man is intended to be a worker as part of his/her natural purpose (Little, 1948). Work should not be associated with employment and a means of making a living because it is the life of man. Emanating from the basic philosophical view of work, work ethics have been defined differently by different researchers with different emphases. Bazzy (2018) views work ethics as “an individual’s attitude toward work and effortful activities”. This definition does not indicate what the attitudes toward work are and what the purpose of effortful activities is. This confusion can be explained by Bouma, (1973), and Nelson, (1973) as they define work ethics as “a belief in the value and importance of work for its own sake”. Based on this definition, the purpose of work is for its own sake and not for any other things because work is an essential part of human existence. This definition is consistent with the philosophy of work that work is natural and part of human nature. While Lessnoff (1994) considers work ethic as “a complete and relentless devotion to one’s economic role on earth”.  Following his definition, it appears that work is a fulfilment of the “homo economicus” (economic man) nature of human beings (Petrovic, 2008). Homo economicus theory suggests that man is a rational being who makes a decision and pursues wealth for his/her self-interest (Efeoğlu & Çalışkan, 2018). In other words, economic production is the determining factor of man or society (Petrovic, 2008). This concept may not be necessarily in contradiction with the philosophy of work as a part of human nature and a means for self-perfection because the purpose of rational power is to change matter into goods that have objective value (Cholbi, 2022). This concept explains that man is a creative being and able to realize his/nature as a rational being through his/her creativity, activity or work (Petrovic, 2008).

Related to the effect of work ethics on outcomes, many studies have been conducted. Bazzy (2016) pointed out that work ethic particularly hard work is associated with success. This was already pointed out by an earlier study by Mudrack (1997) which concluded that individuals who hold strong work ethics tend to be more committed, satisfied and engaged in their jobs. This result is similar to the research finding of Marri, et al (2012) which measures the effect of work ethics on organizational commitment and turnover intention. The study found that work ethics are significantly correlated with organizational commitment and turnover intention. The same result is also found in the studies of Ud Din, et al (2019), Athar, et al (2016), Udin, et al (2022), Aflah, et al. (2021), Salahuddin (2011) and Salahudin, et al. (2016) which work ethic affects job performance, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.       

The confusions between the philosophy of work and work ethics result in the confusion of dimensions of work ethics to be measured. Concerning the measurement of work ethics, there have been conflicts among researchers. The conflicts were about the dimensions of work ethics whether it is a multidimensional construct or a single-dimensional construct. Miller (2002) argues that work ethics is a multidimensional construct which is composed of several dimensions namely work-related activity, attitudes and beliefs, and motivation which is reflected in behaviour. According to him, work ethics does not refer to a particular job and behaviour and does not reflect any religious beliefs and values because it is purely secular. Bazzy (2018) also considers work ethics to be a multidimensional construct that consists of two dimensions which are hard work and self-reliance. Van Ness, et al. (2010) further view work ethics as a multidimensional construct which includes seven dimensions: self-reliance, morality/ethics, leisure, hard work, the centrality of work, waste of time, and delay of gratification. However, Sharma and Rai (2015) rejected the multidimensional measures of work ethics on the basis that these dimensions were not going through a rigorous assessment of the validity and they were based only on the Protestant work ethics construct which is against the philosophy of work ethics to be secular and free of religious beliefs and such was the basis for them to construct their scale to measure the work ethics and their study concluded that work ethic is a single – dimensional construct or uni-dimensional construct which is composed of three components which are work centrality, moral approach to work and intrinsic work motivation. According to them, though they seem to be three dimensions, they are treated under a single dimension which is called the work ethics dimension which contains the attitude toward work, the moral attitude toward work and the motivation of work. Sharma and Rai (2015) successfully constructed the 10-item work ethics scale and passed through convergent and discriminant validity.

In the current study, we are adopting the single-dimensional construct of Sharma and Rai (2015) because the construct is in line with the philosophy of work in which the focus is the attitude toward work and we are using the 10 Work Ethics Scale of Sharma and Rai (2015) because the scale has been going through validity testing and free of religious bias. 

Conclusion

Work is not only one way of contributing value to the state or community, and a means for getting a paycheck, but work is for the perfection of the self because, by nature, man is intended to be a worker as part of his natural purpose (Little, 1948) and therefore life without work is against human nature and a man by his/her nature is a worker and is his/her purpose and through work, man perfects his nature by doing some of the visible good in the material world. Work ethics is about one's attitude toward the work. 

 

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Clarifying Morality, Values and Reinforcing Moral Behavior in the Workplace

 Just a Background

The stories from corporations around the globe indicate that business bankruptcy is not really caused by tough competition but those stories tell us that one of the causes of bankruptcy is related to moral issues. Moral values are no longer applied to the workplace when people are carrying out their duties and responsibilities but people are ruled by self-interest and greed. Greediness causes people to look for shortcuts to achieve higher gains in the short run. When companies commit unethical behaviour, it is not only the company that suffers but the lives of the people.  Let us take the example of several stories of bankruptcies which are considered corporate scandals.  Sammy Said (2013) in THE RICHEST journal listed several top ten corporate scandals and they are Union Carbide (10), Compass Group (9), ImClone System, Inc. (8), BP Oil (7), Xerox (6), Tyco International (5), HealthSouth Corporation (4), WorldCom (3), Parmalat (2), and Enron (1).

Why are they called corporate scandals? Let us look into the reasons why they are scandalous. Union Carbide is a chemical manufacturing company that was founded in 1917 and was known as a pioneer of petrochemical industries. It produced chemical products as raw materials for several industries. It went into disaster when it exposed 5 million people in Bhopal India to methyl isocyanate gas after a leak from the pesticide plant. The Indian government charged them $ 480 million. Adding to the storyline is Compass Group. Compass Group was founded in 1941 by Jack Bateman. The company started as a small canteen to support British war support staff. The company then has grown to become an authority in the contract catering industry. The scandal surfaced in 2005 when a UN procurement office together with Vladimir Kuznetsov was arrested for corruption. The group later admitted to receiving $1 million as a bribe from the Compass Group. ImClone Systems Inc. is an American pharmaceutical company which was founded in 1984 and was engaged in the production of cancer medicines. The scandal happened when the Food and Drug Administration of America rejected one of the most anticipated medicines that was developed by the company. How did the scandal happen? It happened when the Founder and CEO, Samuel D. Waskal, sold his shares and influenced his family, relatives and close associates to follow suit before he even released the news of the FDA’s rejection of the medicine, for fear that the share price of ImClone Systems Inc. would plummet. He was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for insider trading and fraud. Making it to the list is BP Oil. BP Oil or British Petroleum Oil is the 3rd largest energy company in the world operating in more than 75 countries and was founded in 1906. What scandal did it do? There was a massive amount of oil leaked from one of the wells into the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River Delta. It was caused by a wellhead blowout during the digging process, which killed 11 people and eventually caused great harm to marine life affecting about 800 km of the American coastline. BP processed almost $1 million in damage claims and by far has paid the claimants close to $5 million. Another scandal is committed by XEROX. It was discovered in 2002 that there were incorrect entries in the balance sheets of the company from 1997 to 2000. The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission brought Xerox’s malpractice into the limelight. The corporation rectified its accounts and was forced to pay $10 million as the penalty for securities fraud. Another malpractice story was committed by Tyco International. In 2002 the company got involved in a scandal when its CEO Dennis Kozlowski was accused of theft, and embezzling more than $120 million worth of company funds. He received millions of dollars that were never authorized by the company’s directors. Kozlowski was sentenced 8-25 years of imprisonment in 2005.  Making it to the top 4 was HealthSouth. HealthSouth provides health care for patients recovering from cardiac or neurological disorders. The company’s CEO Richard Scrushy got into a scandal in 2002 when he sold $75 million of his company stocks before the company reported huge losses. When the scandal was investigated, it was found that the CEO got into a fraudulent deal which amounted to $10 billion. Another rocking story is WorldCom. What did the CEO do? The company’s CEO Bernard Ebbers aggressively acquired new companies as a way to build the company. For this reason, the company was able to accrue more than $40 billion worth of debt. Other officials of the company decided to use illegal methods to conceal the real financial condition of the business. Upon, proving that Ebbers got involved in the fraud, he was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. The second place in the scandal list was Parmalat.  The once famous and rich company collapsed in 2003 when Tanzi embezzled eight hundred million Euros from his own company and left a hole in its accounts equivalent to the amount of $20 billion, making the Parmalat affair the biggest bankruptcy ever to happen in Europe. Finally, the top one that rocked the corporate world was ENRON. ENRON is an American company doing business in the energy industry which was founded in 1985. It was one of the well-known companies and was even considered as America’s Most Innovative Company. However, that fame, changed when the Enron Scandal was brought into the open in 2001, making it the largest bankruptcy of all time, amounting to a whopping $63.4 billion. It led to a massive job loss in 2002. More importantly, it pioneered several policy changes to ensure that every American corporation’s books are properly audited.

Those top ten most scandalous corporations are not the end of the story of the scandals. Scandals continue to make the story of corporations in the world today. Let us see some corporations that are also considered the Most Outrageous Business Scandals of 2015. Yakowic (2015) presented several lists of the most outrageous business scandals and they are first, Toshiba. To make aggressive profits, and convince the investors to invest, Toshiba’s managers decided to fudge its financial results. The electronics company admitted to inflating its earnings over seven years by close to a whopping $2 billion, it sounded the same as Enron. Second is FIFA. What happened? What did they do? The U.S. investigators accused the FIFA officials of taking millions of dollars in bribes to influence clothing sponsorship contracts, the FIFA presidential election, and the selection process for the World Cup. Third is Goldman Shacks.  What did the company do? The company officials did not supervise an employee who allegedly used confidential regulatory information for the benefit of a client. The employee had worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before Goldman and used his connections to get confidential information. The company was fined $ 50 million. Fourth is the EXXON Mobil. What did EXXON do? The team of scientists of EXXON conducted a study and concluded that global warming is real and that it poses potential dangers for the company and higher sea levels could damage Exxon's drilling platforms, processing plants, pump stations, and pipelines. That is their findings; however, the solution was not to answer the problem. Instead of helping to combat the environmental risk, Exxon decided to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign questioning climate change in order to bolster company profits. Another crook that came into the scene is Volkswagen. The Environmental Protection Agency caught Volkswagen in a huge scandal that reportedly could cost the company as much as $ 87 billion. The EPA uncovered that diesel-engine VW models sold in the United States had software installed allowing the cars to falsely pass emissions tests. Later, VW admitted that it had been cheating the tests deliberately and revealed that 11 million cars worldwide were fitted with the so-called "defeat device." There are still many to mention about corporate scandals but the bottom line is that all those corporations mentioned are involving ethical behavior in exercising their duties and responsibilities. Are these caused by the confusion of morality and values? Or is it a lack of reinforcement?

The Confusion of Morality and Values

Different people have different definitions of ethics. Often time people are confused with ethics and values. The two are not necessarily the same because values are not necessarily moral. One can value hard work but hard work is not necessarily moral. Some people who do not know the exact difference between ‘values’ and ‘ethics’ often use the two words interchangeably. Though these two are different, these two together form the basis for making decisions. Values are basic beliefs one thinks to be of importance. Every individual has a set of values through which he looks at all things and also at the world. It can be said that most of the people will never deviate from their values. These values can be said to be the guiding principles in one’s life or in decision-making. ‘Value’ can be defined as a bridge by which an individual makes a decision regarding good and bad, right or wrong, and most important or least important (Amico, 2016). Often time people say that the values of the person can be seen in his way of living his life and in his work. Ethics is a set of moral standards used for moral conduct or behaviour (Abun, 2016). In this case, moral standards are guiding principles in one’s behaviour. Those moral values are always in his /her mind whenever he/she carries out his/her duties and responsibilities.  Examples of moral standards are honesty, fairness or justice, truth, generosity, kindness, respect for human dignity and love.

The sources of moral standards or moral values are reason, religion and culture for those who adopt moral relativism. There is a saying that goes like, “avoiding the negative clears the paths for our inherent goodness”. This saying is just confirming the belief that all humans are necessarily good, not evil (Astor, 2016). This saying is in line with what Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was arguing that humans are good by nature but corrupted by Society (Cameron, 2013). God has given humans the reason which has the capability to know good and bad. Actions of humans are guided by reason and reason is naturally good. Besides reason, the source of morality is religion. Each religion has the bible and the bible contains moral values/teachings that everyone who belongs to that religion has to follow. On top of reason and religion, a school of thought is arguing that cultural practices are a source of moral conduct. Since it is based on the culture, then each culture will have different moral values and in such a case, there is no absolute morality to be followed by all (Abun, 2010).

The source of values is the individual person based on what the person views as important. Values are very much personal while ethics is very much societal. Ethics regulate human behaviour in dealing with other human persons. Ethics remind the person to follow the rules that are accepted socially. It is within such a view; that one can also argue that values and ethics sometimes can be in conflict. Even if one has certain values, he will not be able to entertain certain decisions based on the ethical codes. A person, who values profit as his /her important value in running his /her business, may not be able to hold himself/herself from cheating the customers, though she/he knows that cheating is immoral. What is morally accepted by some may not be accepted by some who hold different values. In short, values and ethics are two poles that influence a person in his/her choice to act or not to act.  

 How about work ethics?  For the purpose of this research paper, I define work ethic as how one does his/her job based on the socially accepted moral principle. In other words, it is a moral values-based work behaviour. The one who does the job has in mind that his/her work should not harm himself/herself, others or the community as a whole but it should promote the happiness of oneself and others. Along such concepts, work ethics involve such characteristics as honesty, fairness, integrity, justice, truth, love and accountability. Essentially, work ethics break down to what one does or would do in a particular situation. Work ethics, such as honesty such as not lying, cheating, and stealing, doing a job well, and feeling/being a part of a greater vision or plan is vital. One should be aware that what one does affects others and one should not harm the lives of others in any form. In terms of justice, one should always be aware that everyone should be treated equally as a human person, not as objects. In the case of integrity, what one promises should be delivered. Lying is definitely against telling the truth. Hiding the truth about the true nature of your business is a form of unethical behaviour. Accountability is another work ethics that motivate people to accept the blame if mistakes have been committed. When a person does his/her job he/she should do it honestly, justly, truthfully, with integrity and accountability.

A work value is a different thing. It is a fundamental belief of a person or organization and a source of guiding principles in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. Values are the embodiment of what an organization stands for and should be the basis for the behaviour of its members in carrying out their duties and responsibilities (National Defense University, 2016). However, those values may not necessarily be in consonance with publicly accepted values because they are considered personal beliefs or organizational beliefs. They are considered mirrors to evaluate one’s work if she/he does it in line with his values or organizational values. An organization has always values such as excellence, advancement, risk-taking, altruism, creative expression, hard work, honesty, integrity, efficiency, profitability, accountability, and many more. These values are their core values and are used as their guiding principles in their work, however, these values are not necessarily moral. The organization can have a long list of core values as their work values and their core values may contradict the values that the society holds. Those values can help people to know how to evaluate their work; they can help companies to determine if they are on the right path and fulfilling their business goals; and they create an unwavering and unchanging guide. There are many different types of core values and many different examples of core values depending upon the context.

The Cause of Bankruptcy

Now after we have seen the difference between ethics and values, we can make a judgment because the big corporations went bankrupt. The question is: is bankruptcy caused by moral values/ethics or values? The nature of ethics a code of moral conduct that is socially accepted, while work values are not really socially accepted because it is individual beliefs or organizational beliefs, not necessarily socially accepted. Though some core values may be in line with moral values, however, it is not a rule that a person or a company’s work values should always be aligned with moral values. Based on the above arguments, therefore, I really believe that work values have something to do with bankruptcy but not work ethics. A company that is driven by profitability as one of its core values can pursue profit by all means. A company that is driven by excellence as its core values can do everything by all means to achieve such status. A company that is driven by competitiveness as one of its core values can do everything to stay competitive. Often time the core values that are posted together with the vision and mission statement are for pleasing the eyes of the investors, just like what Enron did. At Enron.com, the company's Web site, one learns that as a ''global corporate citizen'' Enron intends to conduct itself in accord with four capital-V Values: Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence (Kunen, 2002). This is fairly standard stuff but what happened after the values statement is crucial. The values were just decoration on their wall but it was not used as guiding principles in their business dealings. CEO Jeffrey Skilling had a way of hiding the financial losses of the trading business and other operations of the company; it was called mark-to-market accounting. This is a technique used when trading securities where you measure the value of a security based on its current market value, instead of its book value. This can work well for securities, but it can be disastrous for other businesses (Investopedia, 2016).

Reinforce Ethical Behavior in the Workplace

An excellent organization is not just described by its quality product but also by the quality of its human resources. Quality product is a product of quality human resources. However, quality human resources is not just defined by their skills but also defined by their moral values. When they are working on a product, they are guided by their moral values. By their moral values, they are told that a product should not be hazardous to human health, it must be safe. By their moral values, they are told that they should not make a fake financial statement just to please the eyes of the investors. By their moral values, they are told that the environment should be protected because the quality of life is dependent on clear air. By their moral values, they are advised not to lie to their customers, or investors and should be honest in dealing with their customers or investors. By their moral values, they are reminded not to treat employees as objects but as subjects with dignity, not as means to achieve ends. 

Now, where do we start to establish a clean or ethical organization? In order to create an ethical organization, an organization screen employees based on their past moral conduct/behavior. It is here an HRM should investigate the candidate very well to include all moral records of the applicant. Dennis Collins (2009) suggested that behavioural information can be obtained from resumes, reference checks, background checks, and integrity tests. Behavior is also a function of attitudes. The most reliable attitudinal survey scales for predicting ethical behaviour measure conscientiousness, organizational citizenship behaviour, social dominance, and bullying. Job candidates also should be interviewed about how they managed ethical dilemmas at their previous workplace and allowed to comment on any issues revealed from the behavioural information or attitudinal surveys.  

Though strict screening may be employed at the beginning, however, there is always a possibility that the organization may have not gathered all the information about a person. There are possibilities that some bad eggs have joined the workforce. To prevent further the development of unethical behavior within the organization, the organization must formulate an ethical code of conduct as Mack (2016) suggested that the organization must pose clear guidelines that delineate the type of behavior that the organization expects. An organization's codes serve as its conscience and provide employees with a common ethical reference point. Reviewing a list of ethical questions helps to unveil the ethics of any work situation that arises       

Conclusion.

Corporate scandals are majority caused by unethical behavior. Proper training and development on moral values and values should be done in all organizations. Creating an ethical organization may not be easy after all. It is not a matter of writing those ethical standards and placing them on the wall and letting everybody read them and that’s all. Actions that reflect those values are not monitored. This is actually what happens when the organization writes their core values. They have core values and place them on a piece of paper and place them on the wall. That’s it. There are no clear guidelines on how to implement those core values, monitor their implementation and what sanctions for violating those core values are. 

References

1. Said, Sammy. (2013). Top 10 Corporate Scandals. The Richest. http://www.therichest.com/business/top-10-corporate-scandals/ retrieved, January 4, 2017.

2. Yakowicz, Will. (2015). The Most 8 Outrageous Business Scandals of 2015. Inc. Company. http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/biggest-big-business-fails-of-2015.html. Retrieved, January 3, 2017.

Astor, Yaakov. (2016). Human Nature: Inherently Good or Evil. TLC Mission. http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/48892107.html. Retrieved, December 5, 2016. 

Abun, Damianus. (2016). Moral Standards and Corporation’s Moral Responsibility. Texila International Journal of Academic Research, Vol. I, Issue, 2.  

Abun, Damianus. (2010). Moral Relativism, Universalism/Absolutism and the Teaching of Catholic Church on Morality. Asian Educational Research Association Journal (AERA). https//www.aerassociation.com. Retrieved, December 5, 2016.

Cameron, Janet. (2013). Jean-Jacques Rousseau: We are Good by Nature but Corrupted by Society. DECODED. http://decodedpast.com/jean-jacques-rousseau-good-nature-corrupted-society/3811. Retrieved, November, 5, 2016.

Collin, Dennis. (2009). Ten Tips to Reinforce Ethical Behavior at Work. IB In Business. http://www.ibmadison.com/In-Business-Madison/July-2009/Ten-Tips-to-Reinforce-Ethical-Behavior-at-Work/. Retrieved, January 10, 2017.

Investopedia. (2016). Enron scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling. http://www.investopedia.com/updates/enron-scandal-summary/. Retrieved, January 1, 2017.  

Sam, Amico, (2016). Workplace Values and Ethics. Chron. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/workplace-values-ethics-4887.html. Retrieved, January 10, 2017.

Kunen, S. james. (2002). Enron’s Vision and Values Thing. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/19/opinion/enron-s-vision-and-values-thing.html. Retrieved, December 15, 2016. 

Mack, Stan. (2016). How to Reinforce Ethical Behavior in the Workplace. Chron. Small Business. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/enforce-ethical-behavior-workplace-20234.html. Retrieved, January 12, 2017. 

National Defense University. (2016). Ethics and Values. Strategic Leadership and Decision Making. http://www.au.af.mil/AU/AWC/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch15.html Retrieved, November 10, 2016.

 

       

The Difference between Morality and Ethics

 Introduction

It has been long time people use the two terms interchangeably with the same meaning. It means that when we talk ethics, we actually mean the same as morality.  However, the two words are very much different, and different in meaning.

Many books on ethics and on morals are not pointing out their differences and using the terms interchangeably and it gives the reader the understanding that the two are the same. In fact, they are not. But in my first article, I told the reader that I am using the tow terms for the same thing. My purpose was for the reader not to have the two terms enter the mind of the reader at the same time. Now I would like to clarify the two terms. The difference between ethics and morals can seem somewhat arbitrary to many, but there is a basic, albeit subtle, difference between the two. The conflict of arguments on the pro and cons on the two terms have been leading to confusing discussion on ethics and morals. Up to this moment, many books out there have not pointed clearly the difference; books have used the terms interchangeably as I did. John Deigh (1995) in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is "commonly used interchangeably with morality…... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual." Knowing such confusions, we cannot just let it be but we need to draw the line between the two so that people can understand and use the terms properly.   

This simple article is really intended to distinguish between the two, for the reader not to be confused with the two, although they are conveying the same thing but it might be good to see the context within which the two may show the difference. Hopefully this article will help to settle the difference and I believe, many may not be able to agree with the things presented here.  

Ethics

In my previous article that I posted on the same blog, that when we discuss ethics, it should be neutral. One should not bring in his mind the ethics that he gets from his religion or what he/she gets from his culture. Ethics is independent concept that cannot be mixed with religion.  As it was emphasized by Richard Paul and Linda Elder (2006) of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, that "most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs and the law", and don't treat ethics as a stand-alone concept.  

Starting from the point of view of Paul and Elder, it can be argued that ethics is a philosophy of moral. Ethics helps and guides a person in making a moral decision particularly when a person facing a moral dilemma. Ethics help a person understand why he/she chooses a certain act and not the other one. Thus, ethics is about the philosophical process of answering 'Given what we know, what should we do in a particular situation and circumstances. It guides moral agent to make a moral decision. It helps us to examine our choices of action if our choices or decision are ethically correct and will lead to a more or less moral decision. I call it more or less moral decision, because there is no such thing as morally perfect decision when we apply ethics. Circumstances surround the problem and situations come into play and make it more or less morally perfect. 

In Ethics we discuss human act and act of man. Human acts mean the act that is purely belonging to man which is inspired by reason and free will. While the act of man means the acts that are not purely belonging to man because animal can do the same such as eating, drinking, sleeping but this act can be subjected to ethical evaluation depending on the circumstance, situation, motivation or intention and the purpose and consequence. In this case, not all acts are subjected to evaluation.

Reason and free will is the starting point in which someone can evaluate a certain act if it is morally bad/wrong or good. Example is determining the morality of killings. A person killed his wife on Christmas evening and he was arrested and now he is under investigation. Killing in full sense is immoral and if there are no circumstance surround the killing, then the person will be given full sentence. But when it applies ethic in the examination of the killing, the gravity of its morality will be lessened or mitigated or it will be increased and the sentence might be lessened or increased. Why? Here the circumstance is scrutinized if the act was really done in full knowledge/reason and no other external factors or internal factors that forced him to do so. Or the person may have done it in because he was under the influence of liquor, drugs. Drug testing and liquor testing is required. If it is proven, then it can be said that his full knowledge and freedom were not present during the act. The punishment might be lessened. But if the investigation proved otherwise that it was premeditated that the person really wants to kill his wife because he wants to marry another one, then the case is completely changed. The full/maximum sentence can be given to the person.

The tools that are being used by ethics in examining the moral problems are not only reason and freewill but also intention, means, end and consequence. A student wants to be dean lister. How is she/he going to achieve such dream? The concern here is the means to achieve such desire. A moral choice or a good choice would be to study hard and bad choice would be to cheat.  The student has the choice whether to study hard or to cheat. If he/she chooses to study hard and achieve his/her purpose, then she/he would be praised but he/she chooses to cheat and she/he achieved but the consequence is that she/he might be removed from dean’s lister.

 In relation to the case of consequence, let us take the case of double effect of a pregnant woman. The doctor declared that the pregnant mother is in risky situation and the family has to choose whether to save the life of the mother or the son.  The family cannot decide but something has to be done. Not to operate, both will die. But the operation /cesarean result would be either the mother or the son is going to be sacrificed. The perfect choice here would be that both should be saved and the doctor really works to save both human life but as a consequence of the operation would be either, the son or the mother is sacrificed. In this case, the intention is good, the means is good and the purpose is good but the consequence is that the son died. In this case moral burden to the doctor or the family is perfectly mitigated.

Those examples clearly remind us that ethics is guiding principles in moral decision or moral choice. In case of moral dilemma, ethics can guide the moral agent how to make more or less morally praised decisions under a certain circumstance. Ethics is a philosophy that questions or explains morality, values and subsequent outcome of certain act. Ethics is the critical reflection on personal and social morality. Groups and societies have moral expectations just as individuals have moral judgments. Thus the purpose of knowing ethics is clear. It is to guide the person or the group on how to make a moral decision.  Ethics is the science of Morals. It makes sense of moral decisions. It explains why one ought to do and not to do. Ethics are an integral part of social laws and politics. In any dichotomy situation, one where two choices are available, ethics steps in to identify the best action-choice. Ethical action is defined and questioned within our interactions with people, environment and other non human beings. Ethics is an approach, a method of making decisions. Ethics is about deciding to the best of our ability, without fear or favor. It is about being aware of the many aspects of each issue and trying to include them into the decision making process. It is about being aware of the outcome of our decisions, good and bad. Ethics is about making a well-considered decision and having the moral courage to accept the responsibility of our decision. Ethics is more a way of approaching decisions, ethics is not a set of values but a way of developing values for a certain situation as it is understood.

Using the tools that are given or provided by ethics, a person can make a better choice of actions that will be morally acceptable. However, experience would tell us that there is no such perfect moral decision. Either one or more of the rules are violated. Seldom we find that the intention is good, the means is good, the end is good and the consequence is good. If such happen, then it is morally perfect. Often time, a person emphasizes more on the ends or the consequence, and then she/he ignores the motives and the means. That is the case of consequentialism ethics which emphasizes on the consequence or the ends. As long as the ends or the consequence is good, then the motives, the means do not matter. The ends justify the means. Whatever means, either good or bad, as long as the result is good, then it is moral. Often time people prioritize the intention or the motives and ignoring the ends or consequence and so it is morally acceptable. Therefore, people are choosing the lesser evil, meaning the decision is still immoral but to a lesser extent.  

In summary, we can say that ethics is not sets of values and to be applied in our lives but ethics is a philosophy of moral. Ethics is a way of reaching an answer in any situation. The aim is to reach the best answer. But all problems are complicated. The more we learn about a problem, the more complicated it becomes.

Morality: Universal and Relative

Many have tried to define morality but these definitions bring more confusions and lead to uncertainty. Often morality is defined as ethics and ethics is defined as morality. Leaving behind all those kinds of definition, now let us put forward the definition that we would like to adopt.  

Morality can be defined in its descriptive and normative sense. Morality in its descriptive sense refers to some codes of conduct put forward and accepted by a society, some other group, or a religion, or individual for the guide of behavior. Morality in its normative sense refers to codes of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons which is not limited to a particular group, culture or individual (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2002). This is what we call universal morality which is applied to all rational being everywhere. While relative morality is applied to a specific group, society or individual.

To take “morality” to refer to an actually existing code of conduct put forward by a society results in a denial that there is a universal morality, one that applies to all human beings. This descriptive use of “morality” is the one used by anthropologists when they report on the morality of the societies that they study. “Morality” has also been taken to refer to any code of conduct that a person or group takes as most important.

When “morality” is used simply to refer to a code of conduct put forward by any actual group, including a society, or individuals, it is being understood in the descriptive sense of morality.

Morality” in a normative sense, refers to a code of conduct that applies to all beyond a cultural boundary. It is universal.  In the normative sense, morality should never be overridden, that is, no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement. All of those who use “morality” normatively hold that all rational persons should obey it. It is a must.

The main objective of morality is to be able to highlight 'right' and 'wrong'. As a code of conduct, moral codes define 'appropriate' and 'expected' behavior. Community morality is usually defined via commentaries and codes of authority. Morality is better understood as an assimilation of beliefs about the essentials to lead a 'good' life. Moral codes are based on value systems that have been tried and tested.

Conclusion

It is clear that ethics is the philosophy of morality. Morality is the moral codes of conduct. Ethics is theories or concepts of morality that explains why a certain act is good or bad. Morality is rules that have been adopted as code of conducts, either by a society or universally.