Business Ethics

UTALITARIAN
What are the most important types of ethical standards to apply in business activities?
Utilitarian ethic claims that something is right to the extent it diminishes social costs and increases social benefits. Ethic of rights, closely associated with Kantian duty ethic, claims that one should always consider and respect people’s rights to freedom and well-being. Aristotelian virtue ethic evaluates the moral character of persons or groups.
As articulated by Mill and Bentham, utilitarianism aims not for the pleasure of the individual but the “greatest good for the greatest number” of people. Refined by its later interprets, utilitarianism also rejects a simplistic belief in pursuing the most pleasure possible in favour of the view that incorporates qualitative standards and elevates pleasures of the mind over pleasures of the body. The term “happiness” seems to capture this broadened sense best, and Utilitarian philosophers sometimes call their principle the “greatest happiness principle.” To apply correctly the utilitarian approach, one should avoid several possible misunderstandings of the utilitarian principle. First, the principle does not refer to that action which produces the most utility for the person performing that action; rather, an action is right if it produces the most utility for all persons affected by the action (including the person performing the action). Nor does the utilitarian principle say that an action is right so long as its benefits outweigh its costs. Rather, utilitarianism holds that, in the final analysis, only one action is right: that one action whose net benefits are greatest by comparison to the net benefits of all other possible alternatives.
Finally, the utilitarian principle does not require us to consider only the direct and immediate consequences of our actions. Instead, both the immediate and