1.3 Moral Standards
So far we have looked at where morality may come from and how it may be shaped by human psychology. Although these
theories are important for telling us about the nature of morality, they do not necessarily tell us how we should behave
and what the moral standards are that we should follow.
We turn next to that issue and explore three approaches to moral standards: virtue theory, duty theory, and utilitarianism.
Virtues
One of the strangest business stories in recent years is that of Bernard Madoff, who scammed investors out of $65 billion
in a Ponzi scheme. He started out as a small-time investment manager, but by courting wealthy investors from around the
globe, he eventually built his roster of clients up to 4,800. Offering a steady return of about 10% per year, he covered these
payouts with money coming in from new investors. However, when his clients rushed to withdraw $7 billion during a
major stock-market decline, he could not cover those expenses and he confessed to the fraud.
The humiliation for Madoff’s whole family was so great that he and his
wife attempted suicide, and shortly afterward their son did kill himself.
When we look at Madoff as a human being, we see that his immoral
business conduct was a consequence of his flawed character. His
desire for money, power, and a lavish lifestyle became so excessive
that it created a trap for him from which he could not break free. He
had what moral philosophers call vices: bad habits of character that
result in a serious moral failing. He was unjust, deceitful, intemperate,
overambitious, and immodest. What Madoff lacked were virtues—the
opposite of vices—which are good habits of character that result in
morally proper behavior. He did not have the virtues of justice,
truthfulness, temperance, restraint, and modesty.
Virtue theory is the view that morality is grounded in the virtuous
character traits that people acquire. The ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle (384 BCE–322 BCE) developed the most influential analysis
of virtues, which even today is considered the standard view of the
subject. It all begins with our natural urges.
Jeff Daly/ Picture Group/ASSOCIATED PRESS
These shoes, once owned by Bernie Madoff,
were put up for auction by U.S. Marshals
along with many of his other belongings to
help repay the victims of his crimes.
For example, we all have natural desires for pleasure, and we automatically gravitate towards pleasurable activities such
as entertainment, romance, eating, and even social drinking. With each of these pleasurable activities, though, there are
three distinct habits that we can develop. On the one hand, we might eat too much, drink too much, and become addicted
to all sorts of pleasurable activities. This is the vice of overindulgence. At the opposite extreme, we might reject every form
of pleasure that comes our way, and live like monks locked in their monastery cells. This is the vice of insensibility, insofar
as we have become desensitized to the happiness that pleasures can bring us.
There is, though, a third habitual response to pleasure that stands
midway between these two extremes: We can enjoy a wide range of
pleasures in moderate amounts, and this is the virtue of
temperance. In Madoff’s case, we can say that he was driven by the
desire for wealth, habitually overindulged in the acquisition of it,
and completely lacked the virtue of temperance.
According to Aristotle, most virtues and vices match this scheme:
•
•
•
•
There is a natural urge (such as the desire for pleasure),
there is a vice of excess (such as overindulgence),
there is a vice of deficiency (such as insensibility), and
there is a virtue at the middle position between the two
extremes (such as temperance).
Virture Ethics
Take the virtue of courage, which is driven by our natural fear of
danger. If we take courage to excess, we develop the vice of
rashness, where we lose all fear of danger and rush into hazardous
situations that might kill us. If we are deficient in courage, we
become timid and develop the vice of cowardliness. The virtuous
middle ground of courage is one in which we respect the dangers
before us but, when the circumstances are right, we rise above our
fears.
A large part of our childhood involves cultivating virtuous habits
and avoiding vicious ones, and during our formative years our
parents bear much of the responsibility to shape us in virtuous
directions. As I become older, though, the responsibility becomes
mine alone, and I must think carefully about exactly where that
virtuous middle ground is. How much habitual eating can I do
before I become overindulgent? How much can I habitually hide
from danger before I become a coward? Finding that perfect middle
ground, Aristotle says, is not easy, but it is something that the
moral person must figure out nonetheless. Madoff did not even
come close. His desires for wealth, power, and fame were so allconsuming that the virtue of temperance became out of reach for
him.
Duties
A small computer software company named Plurk accused the
software giant Microsoft® of computer code theft. The product in
question was blogging software that Microsoft developed for its
market in China and which it hoped would catch hold in that
country the way Facebook has in the United States. Around 80% of
the computer code for Microsoft’s product was lifted directly from
blogging software created by Plurk. Microsoft apologized for the
episode and said that the fault rested with an outside company it
had hired to develop the blogging software. It was that outside
company that copied Plurk’s computer code (Nystedt, 2009). The
irony is that Microsoft zealously guards against software piracy and
code theft of its own products, but here it did that very thing, even
if only indirectly. In this situation, there was no moral gray area:
Theft is wrong, the evidence for code theft was incontestable, and
Microsoft had no choice but to immediately admit to it and
apologize.
Critical Thinking Questions
• According to the video, virtues are habits
of good behavior that we acquire through
practice, just as we develop other skills.
Pick a skill, such as playing an instrument
or a sport, explain the technique for
learning it, and discuss how a similar
technique could be used for acquiring the
virtue of charity.
• Aristotle argues that, when acquiring
virtues, we should aim at the mean—or
middle ground of a behavior—rather than
an extreme of excess or deficiency.
Describe how the virtue of courage falls at
a mean between extremes.
• Proper virtues involve displaying them at
the right times, on the right occasions and
towards the right people. Describe what
this would involve with the virtue of
courage.
This Microsoft case highlights the fact that there are at least some
principles of morality that we all clearly recognize and endorse. One moral theory in particular emphasizes the obvious
and intuitive nature of moral principles. Duty theory is the position that moral standards are grounded in instinctive
rational obligations—or duties—that we have. It is also called deontological theory, from the Greek word for duty. The
idea behind duty theory is that we are all born with basic moral principles or guidelines embedded in us, and we use these
to judge the morality of people’s actions.
There are two approaches to duty theory. First, some moral theorists hold that we
have a long catalog of instinctive obligations. The list of the Ten Commandments is
a classic example. Among those listed are obligations not to kill, steal, bear false
witness, or covet your neighbor’s things. These are all basic moral principles that
cultures around the world have endorsed from the earliest times. If you are
thinking about stealing computer code, these principles tell you that it would be
wrong to do so. With enough principles like these, we will have some standard for
judging a wide range of human actions. Many moral philosophers have developed
and expanded the list of our intuitive duties beyond the Ten Commandments to
include a few dozen of them.
Copyright Bettmann/Corbis/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
developed the categorical
imperative, which is a moral
principle that we should treat
each person as an end, and never
merely as a means to an end.
The second approach is that there is a single instinctive principle of duty that we all
should follow; the Golden Rule is the best example of this. That is, I should do to
others what I would want them to do to me. If I am thinking about stealing
someone’s computer code, I should consider whether I would want someone to
steal my code. So too with good actions: When considering whether I should
donate to charity, I should consider how I would feel if I were a needy person
dependent on the charity of others. Like those in the Ten Commandments, the
Golden Rule is a time-honored moral principle that we find in cultural traditions
around the world, dating back thousands of years.
In more recent times, one of the most influential theories of duty is that developed
by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Inspired by the Golden
Rule, Kant offered a single principle of moral duty, which he called the “categorical
imperative”— a term which simply means “absolute command” (1785/1996). Kant offers four versions of the categorical
imperative, but the most straightforward one is this: Treat people as an end, and never merely as a means to an end. His
point was that we should treat all people as beings that have value in and of themselves, and not treat anyone as a mere
instrument for our own advantage.
There are two parts to his point. The first involves treating people as ends that have value in and of themselves. We value
many things in life, such as our cars, our homes, and a good job. Most of the things we value, though, have only
instrumental value—that is, value as a means for achieving something else. Our cars are instruments of transportation.
Our homes are instruments of shelter. Our jobs are instruments of obtaining money.
Other times, though, we appreciate things because they have intrinsic value: We value them for the special qualities that
they have in and of themselves, and not because of any instrumental value that they have. The experience of human
happiness has intrinsic value, and so too do experiences of beauty and friendship. The first part of the categorical
imperative, then, says that we should treat all people as beings with intrinsic value and regard them as highly as we would
our own happiness. If I steal someone’s computer code, I am not respecting the owner the way I value my own happiness.
The second part of the categorical imperative is that we should not treat people as things that have mere instrumental
value. People are not tools or objects that we should manipulate for our own gratification. If I steal someone’s computer
code, I am using the owner for my own gain.
Like the Golden Rule, the categorical imperative provides a litmus test for determining whether any action is right or
wrong. It not only detects immoral actions such as lying and stealing, but it also tells us when actions are moral. When I
donate to charity, for example, I am thinking of the value of the needy people who will benefit from my contribution; I am
not merely thinking of any benefit that I may receive through my charity.
In the business world, there are occasionally times when an action is so obviously wrong that there is no point in
defending it. That was true of Microsoft and also of Madoff, who immediately admitted to his crime once his company
became insolvent. In cases like these, duty theory is at its best.
In other cases, though, morality is a little blurry. Napster is a good example. A decade before BitTorrent, Napster was the
first widely used peer-to-peer file-sharing program, and it enabled users to easily pirate MP3 music files, directly violating
the copyrights of record companies. While this at first appears to be a clear case of a software product that intentionally
enabled users to steal, many people within the music industry itself defended Napster. Record companies had become
stuck in their old ways of selling records and CDs and had not developed a good mechanism for consumers to purchase
MP3 files at a reasonable price. Napster entered the music market as a rogue competitor and forced record companies to
be more responsive to the needs of their consumers. As a consequence, Napster helped jumpstart legal methods of
purchasing MP3 files on websites such as iTunes and Amazon.com; in that way, it provided a new and innovative business
model for the music industry. Duty theory may not be well suited for making moral pronouncements in complex cases like
Napster’s; other moral theories discussed in this chapter may need to be drawn upon. However, duty theory is sufficient to
make moral pronouncements against illegally file-sharing music and movies on BitTorrent. Mechanisms are now in place
to purchase these digital products legally, and obtaining them on BitTorrent is blatant theft.
Utilitarianism
CVS Health recently stopped the lucrative business of selling cigarettes in its 7,600 U.S. stores. The reason, it said, is that it
“is simply the right thing to do for the good of our customers and our company. The sale of tobacco products is
inconsistent with our purpose—helping people on their path to better health” (CVS Health, 2014). Tobacco use is certainly
unhealthy, and the Center for Disease Control says that it is responsible for nearly half a million deaths in the United States
per year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). But with regards to CVS’s decision, is there more going on
than simply doing the right thing?
All businesses make decisions based on a costbenefit analysis: They research
both the costs and the benefits of a particular decision, then determine whether the
costs outweigh the benefits or vice versa. We do not know the confidential details
of CVS’s cost-benefit analysis of its tobacco decision, but the public relations
advantages are clear, and if other pharmacy companies feel pressure to do the
same thing, this would level the playing field for CVS. Ultimately, CVS is gambling
that the long-term economic advantages of its decision will outweigh the shortterm losses.
Cost-benefit analysis is the distinguishing feature of the moral theory of
utilitarianism: An action is morally right if the consequences of that action are
more favorable than unfavorable to everyone. When determining the morality of
any given action, we should list all of the good and bad consequences that would
result, determine which side is weightier, and judge the action to be right if the
good outweighs the bad.
There are three components to this theory. First, it emphasizes consequences. One
Nmg/ASSOCIATED PRESS
of the founders of classical utilitarianism was the British philosopher Jeremy Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
Bentham (1748–1832), who argued that by focusing on consequences of actions developed the moral principle
we make our moral judgments more scientific (1789/1907). To ground morality in that we now call the utilitarian
the will of God requires that we have a special ability to know God’s thoughts. To calculus, which determines
ground morality in conscience or instinctive duties requires that we have special morality by numerically tallying
mental faculties and know how to use them properly. None of this is precise, and it the degree of pleasure and pain
all relies too much on hunches. According to Bentham, a more scientific approach that arises from our actions.
to morality would look only at the facts that everyone can plainly see, and
consequences of actions are those facts. If I steal a car, there are very clear consequences: I gain a vehicle, but I cause
financial harm and distress to the victim and put myself at risk of a long stay in prison. We all can see these consequences
and assess their weights. Bentham held that we can even give numerical values to the various consequences and
mathematically calculate whether the good outweighs the bad, a practice that we now call the utilitarian calculus. Not all
utilitarians go this far, but it does highlight the central role that publicly observed consequences play in the utilitarian
conception of morality.
The second component of utilitarianism is that it focuses on the consequences of happiness and unhappiness. While
businesses assess costs and benefits in terms of financial gains and losses, utilitarianism focuses instead on how our
actions affect human happiness. Some utilitarians, like Bentham, emphasize pleasure and pain; others emphasize
goodness and badness; and still others emphasize overall benefit and disbenefit. What they have in common, though, is
that moral conduct is in some way linked with human happiness and immoral conduct with unhappiness.
The third component of utilitarianism is that we need to assess the beneficial consequences of actions as everyone is
affected. If I am thinking about stealing a car, I need to consider the consequences of my conduct for myself, my family, the
victim, the victim’s family, and anyone else who might be affected by my action. This is reflected in utilitarianism’s famous
motto that we should seek the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism does not necessarily aim to
benefit the majority of people, but rather to maximize the overall amount of happiness resulting from a decision. For
example, abolishing racial segregation in the U.S. South may have been unpleasant for the White majority as a whole, but
that was counter-balanced by a much greater degree of unhappiness that segregation created for the Black minority as a
whole.
There is an important down side to utilitarianism, though, which its critics frequently point out. What if, for example,
retaining racial segregation had created more total happiness for the White majority than the total unhappiness for the
Black minority? Retaining segregation, then, would have been morally justifiable on utilitarian grounds. More generally,
the problem is that sometimes a recognizably evil course of action will produce the greatest amount of happiness.
Utilitarians have proposed different strategies for working around this problem, but the problem is nevertheless a
lingering one. This does not mean that utilitarianism should be discarded as a moral guideline, and, in fact, utilitarian
thinking is so embedded in human moral reasoning that it would be impossible to do so. What it does mean is that
utilitarian decisions should sometimes be supplemented with other moral standards, such as duties or virtues.
Because businesspeople are so familiar with financial cost-benefit analysis, utilitarianism is a natural way to make moral
assessments for business decisions. If CVS’s decision to stop selling tobacco allows it to better position itself and its
stakeholders in the healthcare industry, then its move will be justified on utilitarian grounds. If, on the other hand, the
company and its stakeholders reap no future benefits but only incur disbenefits from the decision, then it was not
justified. CVS clearly believed that it was worth the gamble, and only time will tell.
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