Business Ethics & CSRSession # 5

Naeem ASHRAF

Spring, 2015

SDSB, LUMS

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Rights & Deontological Ethics

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The Concept of a Right

• Right = an individual’s entitlement to something.

– Legal right = An entitlement that derives from a legal system that permits or empowers a person to act in a specified way or that requires others to act in certain ways toward that person.

– Moral (or human) rights = rights that all human beings everywhere possess to an equal extent simply by virtue of being human beings.

• Legal rights confer entitlements only where the particular legal system is in force.

• Moral rights confer entitlements to all persons regardless of their legal system.

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Moral Rights

• Can be violated even when “no one is hurt”.• Are correlated with duties others have toward

the person with the right.• Provide individuals with autonomy and

equality in the free pursuit of their interests.• Provide a basis for justifying one’s actions and

for invoking the protection or aid of others.• Focus on securing the interests of the

individual unlike utilitarian standards which focus on securing the aggregate utility of everyone in society.

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Three Kinds of Moral Rights

• Negative rights require others leave us alone.

• Positive rights require others help us.

• Contractual or special rights require others keep their agreements.

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Right to Equality Right to Marriage and Family

Freedom from Discrimination Right to Own Property

Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security Freedom of Belief and Religion

Freedom from Slavery Freedom of Opinion and Information

Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association

Right to Recognition as a Person before the

LawRight to Participate in Government and in Free Elections

Right to Equality before the Law Right to Social Security

Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions

Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile Right to Rest and Leisure

Right to Fair Public Hearing Right to Adequate Living Standard

Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven

GuiltyRight to Education

Freedom from Interference with Privacy,

Family, Home and CorrespondenceRight to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community

Right to Free Movement in and out of the

CountryRight to a Social Order that Articulates this Document

Right to Asylum in other Countries from

PersecutionCommunity Duties Essential to Free and Full Development

Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to

Change It

Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above

Rights

Contractual Rights and Duties

• Created by specific agreements and conferred only on the parties involved.

• Require publicly accepted rules on what constitutes agreements and what obligations agreements impose.

• Underlie the special rights and duties imposed by accepting a position or role in an institution or organization.

• Require (1) the parties know what they are agreeing to, (2) no misrepresentation, (3) no duress or coercion,(4) no agreement to an immoral act.

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Deontological Ethics*

• Deontology (from the Greek word for “ethics”) refers to moral philosophies that focus on the rights of individuals and on the intentions associated with a particular behavior rather than on its consequences. Fundamental to deontological theory is the idea that equal respect must be given to all persons.

• Deontologists believe that individuals have certain absolute rights:– Freedom of conscience– Freedom of consent– Freedom of privacy– Freedom of speech

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* Ferrel, Fraedrich & Ferrel. 2011. Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. CENGAGE

Kant and Moral Rights

• Individuals generally must be left equally free to pursue their interests.

• Moral rights identify the specific interests individuals should be entitled to freely pursue.

• An interest is important enough to raise to be a right if:– we would not be willing to have everyone deprived of

the freedom to pursue that interest

– the freedom to pursue that interest is needed to live as free and rational beings.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative (First Version)

• We must act only on reasons we would be willing to have anyone in a similar situation act on.

• Requires universalizability and reversibility.

• Similar to questions:

– “What if everyone did that?”

– “How would you like it if someone did that to you?”

Categorical Imperative

• Kant’s categorical imperative says that we should always act in such a way that we can will the maxim of our action to become a universal law.– “Do this” or “Don’t do that”—no ifs, ands, or buts.

– Moral beings give themselves the moral law and accept its demands on themselves.

• A hypothetical prescription tells us what to do if we desire a particular outcome. Thus, “If I want people to like me, I should be nice to them” and “If you want to go to medical school, you must take biology” are hypothetical imperatives. (Shaw, 2011)

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Categorical Imperative

• Categorical Imperative: How Would You Want to Be Treated?– Would you be comfortable with a world in which your standards were

followed?

• Christian Principle: The Golden Rule– And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them

likewise.—LUKE 6:31– Thou shalt love … thy neighbor as thyself.—LUKE 10:27

• Confucius:– What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

• Aristotle:– We should behave to our friends as we wish our friends to behave to

us.

• Judaism:– What you hate, do not do to anyone.

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* Jennings, M.M. 2009. Business Ethics: Case Studies and Selected Readings, CENGAGE

Categorical Imperative

• Islam:– No one of you is a believer until he loves for his

brother what he loves for himself.

• Hinduism:– Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not

have him do to thee.

• Sikhism:– Treat others as you would be treated yourself.

• Plato:– May I do to others as I would that they should do unto

me.

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* Jennings, M.M. 2009. Business Ethics: Case Studies and Selected Readings, CENGAGE

Kant’s Categorical Imperative (First Version)

• Kantian ethics considers the following actions as universally impermissible based on the logic of the categorical imperative:

– Lying and deception: Promise to repay loan

– Stealing: property would have no meaning

– Laziness: failure to cultivate one’s talents

– Lack of charity: one can not expect charity

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Kant’s Categorical Imperative (Second Version)

• Never use people only as a means to your ends, but always treat them as they freely and rationally consent to be treated and help them pursue their freely and rationally chosen ends.

• Based on the idea that humans have a dignity that makes them different from mere objects.

Kant’s Contrasts*

• MORALITY/Motive: – duty vs inclination (Honesty is best policy

because!)

• FREEDOM/determination of will: – autonomy vs heteronomy (Do….if/for…)

• REASON/imperative (ought): – Categorical vs hypothetical (instrumental reasons)

• Standpoints: – Intelligible vs sensible realms

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* Sandel,M. 2009. Justice: What’s the right thing to do. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY.

Criticisms of Kant

• What has moral worth? – An act if carried-out out of instinct, habit, or sympathy for

the other person, then the act still does not have moral worth

– Giving money to famine relief efforts has no moral worth if one is emotionally moved to do so by pictures of starving children rather than by a sense of duty?

• Is the categorical imperative an adequate test of right?– “Never steal except when starving.” This rule seems just as

universalizable as “Never steal.” The phrase “except …” can be viewed not as justifying a violation of the rule but as building a qualification into it.

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Criticisms of Kant

• What does it mean to treat people as means?

– It is not always clear when people are being treated as ends and when merely as means e.g. prostitutes vs workers.

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Criticisms of Kant

• Both versions of the categorical imperative are unclear.

• Rights can conflict and Kant’s theory cannot resolve such conflicts.

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THANKS !