Chapter 5: Philosophical Foundations of Ethics

A.) Consequentialism
 Refers to an approach in moral decision making wherein the prime consideration is the effect or
consequence of an action or a decision
 Sometimes refer to as teleological ethics (telos is a Greek Word which means end, intention or
purpose)
 An action is morally acceptable if it leads to some desirable consequences
 “The rightness or wrongness of an action can be established by reference to its consequences”
 Two consequentialist approaches: Ethical egoism and utilitarianism
 Decision makers and policy makers may consciously or unconsciously invoke utilitarian formulas
1.) Ethical Egoism
 Founded on psychological egoism
 Psychological egoism- the doctrine that everyone is motivated to look after his or her own
perceived best interest
 Describes human nature as basically selfish, self-interested and self-centered
 It assumes that people never act except with a personal benefit in sight
 It is obvious that we show care and concern toward other people, “but this caring is based on
how things affect our own happiness”
 Thomas Hobbes- widely considered as one of the main proponents of psychological egoism, even
interprets acts of seeming altruism to be ultimately egoistic
o Even the seeming altruistic character of alms-giving ultimately boils down to self-interestedness
o Hobbes sees that laws and moral codes are formulated to curtail the basic egoistic character of
human beings; without laws and codes, there will be total chaos in the society.
o The ethical theory, that befits him or her is that which does not deny his or her fundamental
nature
o A good act is one that produces a good consequence for the individual who performs the act
 Criticisms of Ethical Egoism
o We may question psychological egoism, the foundation of ethical egoism. We may not agree at
once that by nature the human person is purely egoistic. It is possible that people are capable of
genuine altruism and self-sacrifice
o We can see that ethical egoism is not a viable ethical theory. It is not different from ethical
subjectivism which was discusses in the previous chapter
 Ethical egoism tends to violate objective moral principles just to satisfy one’s self
interest
2.) Utilitarianism
a. Renowned proponents of modern utilitarianism are the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill.
b. Bentham’s version is now commonly known as act utilitarianism while that of Mill is rule
utilitarianism
c. Latin word utilis which means useful is also a consequentialist approach to ethical decision
making
d. “It tells us that an act’s rightness or wrongness is determined solely by the act’s consequences
and not by any feature of the act itself”
e. Looks for the one with that has good consequences or benefits, overall, for the most number of
affected people
f. Jeremy Bentham on A Fragment on the Government published in 1776, the fundamental axiom
of morality: “the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and
wrong”
 g. Mill in his book Utilitarianism: “the utilitarian standard… is not the agent’s own happiness, but
the greatest amount of utility for the greatest number of people.”
h. Francis Hutcheson on the goal of all ethics: “That action is best which procures the greatest
happiness for the greatest number”
i. Bentham was interested in developing a criterion for legislating laws that would be mindful of
the harms and benefits for those who would be affected by these legislations
j. Somewhat radical and revolutionary in those days since Bentham was able to challenge the
status quo of the government
k. Modern approach in business and economics that we call cost-benefit analysis is usually
considered as reflective of the utilitarian approach to decision making
l. Criticisms:
i. It is hard to quantify or measure the good and bad effects of a decision
ii. Points to the reality that consequences are hard to predict because there are long term
and short-term consequences
iii. Those who oppose this theory observe that some basic human rights may be violated
because of too much concern for the overall good consequences
 A utilitarian may reply that trampling the basic human rights may not necessarily be the choice of a
utilitarian just to advance the happiness of the greater number of people
 When Jeremy Bentham developed utilitarianism, he had the best intention in mind: to base social policies
and legislative processes on what is beneficial for the greatest number of people
3.) Deontological Ethics
a. Maintain that an action can be morally right even if an alternative action in a given situation
would have better overall consequences
b. One of the most famous versions of deontological approach to ethical decision-making is the one
advanced by Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher during the Enlightenment period
c. Deon is a Greek word which means “duty”
d. We can discover universal ethical principles and these principles pose as moral duties that we
must obey
e. American professor Norman Bowie is among the most famous contemporary authors who have
brought deontology into the sphere of business ethics
f. Notion that the human person is both rational and free
g. His or her actions must not simply be driven and impelled by whims, caprices and emotions. A
human act must be founded on reason
h. A human act has true moral worth if it is performed because of a moral duty and not just because
of mere benefits and personal interests
i. Acting in conformity with duty means doing what is right for whatever reason
j. Acting out of duty means doing what is right solely because one knows this to be one’s duty and
one is rationally committed to do one’s duty
k. Categorical imperative- Kant calls those principles that are universally binding
l. Categorical proposition- is a direct assertion or denial of something
m. Hypothetical imperative- is more complex because the truth of one part is dependent on the
truth of the other part

The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

 “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a
universal law”
 Maxim- according to Kant, it refers to the motive of the action
 Writers on Kantian ethics use the terms universalizability and reversibility to express the criteria set by the
First Formulation in simple terms
 Using Kant’s first formulation, roughly, this will be his answer: An action is right if the principle where the
action is based can be accepted by the rational decision-maker to become a universal law and if the
decision-maker would be willing to be treated this way if the situation is reversed

The Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

 “Act so that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at
the same time as end and never merely as means”
 “End” does not mean the opposite of “beginning”
 End- pertains to the reason or intention for acting
 Means- pertains to the way or the instrument used in order to attain the end
 “The end does not justify the means”- signifies that even if you have a good intention, if the method
for attaining this intention is wrong, then the whole action can never be morally justified
 We have to recognize first that Immanuel Kant has the highest regard for the human person being
the only known creature that nature endowed with rationality and autonomy
 Kant also stresses not to treat oneself as a means to attain lower ends
4.) Moral Rights
 Rights- basic claims that define our personhood and our humanity
 The rights approach to decision-making in business maintains that each and every stakeholder
has basic human rights that should be seriously taken into consideration when making decision,
rules and policies
 Rights- are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions or (not) to be in certain states; or
entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states -Velasquez
 Legal Rights
o Is acquired due to specific laws of the locality
o The basic justification for the existence of a legal right is the existence of a law that guarantees it
o “Legal rights are limited to the particular jurisdiction within which the legal system is in force
o Legal rights are limited rights
 Moral Rights
o It is inherent in each person by virtue of his or her very personhood
o Moral rights do not require the person to exert any effort to possess qualifications, to present
requirements and to be identified with a particular group
o Generally independent from a society’s system of written laws
o Generally considered as universal
o A legal right is limited to a particular locality while a moral right is owned by every person
wherever he or she goes
o Not limited by territorial boundaries and by systems of laws
 The inherent universality of moral rights may be one of the main reasons why in 1948, the United Nations
agreed to espouse a “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
 Several constitutions of various nations based many of their provisions on the UDHR
 It is easy to see that the legal basis of a legal right is the written law. Since we are generated by a
particular jurisdiction, then we are also ruled by the laws that are promulgated there in
 First, we can invoke a utilitarian reasoning
o We have rights because to have them will lead to more benefits for the most number of people
o If the society will give each person basic human rights, then in the long run it will be good for the
society
o However, it is a weak foundation of human rights because it is always open to the possibility of
sacrificing basic rights to an impartial analysis sees the necessity of violating these rights for the
sake of maximum utility
 Second, we can make use of Kant’s categorical imperative
o Human rights assure that each person’s capacity to think. to decide, to choose and to act freely is
respected and promoted
5.) Ethics of Care
a. Started as a reaction to the male centered theories of moral reasoning
b. Carol Gilligan- a student of Lawrence Kohlberg, argued that men and women have different
orientations and approaches when it comes to moral reasoning and decision-making
c. Gilligan’s thesis stands as a “different voice”, a sort of criticism against what she considered as
the male-biased theory of Kohlberg
d. While men are driven by justice and entitlement of rights, women are oriented toward basic
human feelings such as sympathy, compassion, fidelity, close relationship and so forth
e. The care perspective is also a legitimate ethical perspective, perhaps even more superior to the
different versions of “justice perspectives”
f. Proponents of care include Nell Noddings and Annette Baier
g. Is an approach to ethical dilemmas that is significantly different from the various perspectives
h. “Care ethics is skeptical of abstract and universal principles, especially rational procedural
mechanisms like the Principle of Utility and the Kantian Categorical Imperative that presume
people to be interchangeable, and moral judgments to be derivable like deductive math
problems” -Maureen Sander-Stuadt and Maurice Hammington
i. The main premise of the ethics of care is “that we have an obligation to exercise special care
towards those particular persons with whom we have valuable close relationships, particularly
relations of dependency
j. The claim of the ethics of care is that partiality is an important consideration in making ethical
considerations