Content area
Full Text
Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 72:1725 Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10551-006-9152-z
Business Ethics Deontologically Revisited
Edwin R. Micewski Carmelita Troy
ABSTRACT. In this paper we look at business ethics from a deontological perspective. We address the theory of ethical decision-making and deontological ethics for business executives and explore the concept of moral duty as transcending mere gain and profit maximization. Two real-world cases that focus on accounting fraud as the ethical conception. Through these cases, we show that while accounting fraud from a consequentialist perspective may appear to provide a quick solution to a pressing problem, longer term effects of fraud and misconduct make ethical implications more apparent. Widely used compensation schemes also may have the tendency to fuel unethical behavior. We argue that an ethical reinvigoration of the business world can only be accomplished by encouraging the business realm to impose upon itself some measure of self-regulating along the lines of deontological ethics. Principles of deontology should guide executive decision-making particularly when executives are tempted to operate outside of codified legislation or are bound to act under judicial-free conditions.
KEY WORDS: Deontological ethics, Business ethics, Consequentialism, Utilitarianism, Accounting fraud
Introduction
This paper addresses capitalism, at least in its more drastic neo-liberalist form and discusses the tenets and guiding principles as well as the violations of ethical codes that can occur when capitalists conduct is, beyond legal boundaries and the monitoring by regulating authorities, unchecked by self-guiding moral principles. The desire for a revision of capitalism on the macro-level of economics derives mostly from issues of globalization, regarding for instance the just or equitable distribution of goods or the combating of poverty. On the micro-level a need to review capitalism may spring from a culture of conspicuous consumption and spending in the extreme. Capitalist societies may have reached a postmodern condition where, as Jean Baudrillard (1998) argues, reality is ltered through the logic of exchange value and advertisement, giving identity no longer through ethnicity, gender, class, or social status, but by consumption. Using two examples of corporate accounting fraud, out of the increasing number of cases of business fraud, larceny, and other forms of illegitimate individual and corporate enrichment, we provide evidence of the results of capitalism when it is unconstrained by moral and ethical codes....