Ethical behavior in organizational and professional contexts

¶ … Ethics

DEFINING ETHICAL BEHAVIOR

Ethics in human life is a concept that may be defined differently in different cultures and societies. However, in many respects, ethics can be defined objectively in a way that does not depend on context. Generally, we receive our ethical training only informally from family and societal mores and to some degree, those efforts are successful. However, evidence of widespread unethical behavior includes both publicized instances of corporate dishonesty and business fraud as well as common personal rationalizations used by ordinary individuals to justify their obviously unethical behavior.

In principle, ethical behavior can be defined logically as conduct that is unfair, dishonest, or deceitful, as well as conduct that is harmful to other people and without valid justification. Discussion:

Ethical standards are defined by social learning and vary substantially in different human cultures. Therefore, the definition of ethical behavior must not depend on cultural differences. In some societies, behaviors are condoned and encouraged that would be considered unethical in other cultures. In the most extreme examples, countries like Nazi Germany taught the supposed ethical obligation to turn in Jews who were hiding from extermination. In the United States prior to 1865, it was illegal to teach black people to read or to help them escape from slavery. Even today, certain societies such as some in the Middle East punish petty crimes of theft with amputation of limbs and impose the death penalty by hanging or stoning for infidelity or homosexuality. In principle, therefore, the definition of ethics cannot depend on local beliefs and customs. Rather, ethical value must be capable of being defined objectively and without reference to any particular culture. Objective ethical standards and values are those that do not depend at all on personal or social perspective, precisely because such ethical values reflect cultural beliefs, values, and prejudices that may themselves be extremely unethical.

Even with an objective definition of ethics, many instances of unethical behavior persist because of the tendency of human beings to rationalize their behavior to justify violating established ethical values. In American society, typical ethical values include being truthful, not stealing, and not breaking rules of cheating. Nevertheless, it is quite common for people to justify lying by saying "I will lie when it suits me - as long as it doesn't cause any real harm," to justify stealing by saying "I will steal from those who won't really miss it," and to justify cheating by saying "Most people will lie and cheat when it is necessary to get what they want." All of those excuses are rationalizations that people use to try to convince themselves (and others) that they have not violated ethical rules when they have.

Contemporary society is full of examples of unethical behavior on may levels, although there are also examples of improvements in many professional industries since the field of ethics has become more prominent. The history of commercial business and industry proves that people will try to do almost anything they can get away with to make a profit. In fact, laws develop for exactly this reason: to address practices that have already been tried. The recent headlines involving the Bernard Madoff scandal and others like Enron demonstrate that ethical values are always capable of being violated even at the highest levels of modern business. In response to corporate scandals and other types of serious ethical violations, lawmakers and industry regulators have continually improved laws and regulations to enforce criminal penalties to deter unethical conduct. Sometimes, these measures are very effective, but generally, only because they create fear of consequences, not because they are necessarily effective at changing the tendency of people to violate ethical rules and values. Without penalties that make unethical behavior risky for those inclined to exploit other people, unethical conduct would probably be much worse in all aspects of human endeavors. Furthermore, laws only address certain types of unethical behavior; there are many areas of extremely unethical behavior that are not covered by any formal laws, such as conduct in personal relationships.