Ethics and Professional Responsibility Values: guiding constructs or ideas, representing deeply held generalized behaviors, which are

e considered by the holder, to be of great significance. Morals: a system or set of beliefs or principles, based on values, which constitute an individual or group s perception of human duty, and therefore which act as an influence or control over their behavior. Morals are typically concerned with behaviors that have potentially serious consequences or profound impacts. The word morals is derived from the Latin mores (character, custom or habit) Ethics: the study and assessment of morals. The word "ethics" is derived from the Greek word, ethos (character or custom). Integrity:from the Latin integritas, meaning wholeness, completeness, or purity. To courageously hold to what one believes is right and true, without compromise. To stand undivided, immovable, consistent in both heart and action, word and deed. Involves the maintenance of virtue and the pursuit of moral excellence. Integrity is demonstrated by not only espousing your values, but by living according to them. Integrity describes both who you are and what you do. People of integrity are conscientious, trustworthy, accountable, committed and consistent. A key to maintaining integrity is counting the cost before committing yourself. Psychologists have found integrity to be essential to an individual's sense of identity and self-worth, enabling the successful navigation of change and challenge. Links between integrity and the ability to gain and maintain the trust of others have often been noted. Many purveyors of practical advice, including Cicero and Benjamin Franklin, have counseled that integrity is the cornerstone of worldly success. According to Franklin, "no Qualities [are] so likely to make a poor Man's Fortune as those of Probity & Integrity" (quoted in Beebe, 1992, p. 8) - from Blackwell s Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics. Character: The notable/conspicuous/ distinguishing moral/ethical traits or characteristics of a person that give evidence of their essential nature and which ultimately shape their reputation. Character vs. Reputation: It has been said that an individual s character can be illustrated by a barrel of apples. The apples seen on top by all represent one s reputation, and the apples that lie hidden underneath are his character. Virtue:The quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.  "Virtue develops from a habitual commitment to pursue the good. - Ronald F. Thiemann, a professor of religion and society at Harvard Divinity School  Wisdom is know what to do next; virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan (1851 - 1931), American naturalist Spiritual Foundation: Feuerstein recently concluded a speech quoting from Jeremiah 9:22-23, in flawless Hebrew, then giving the English translation. His message was "Let the rich man not praise himself," but rather, by demonstrating the will of God, show kindness, justice and righteousness in his actions. His response to the catastrophe was in accordance with the Torah: you do not sacrifice the lives of people who are depending on you.

Capitalism: An economic system in which the major part of production and distribution lies in private hands, operating under a primarily free market system, for the primary purpose of earning a profit on capital invested. What are the core values that are fundamental to the success of any individual or organization? Honesty Respect Responsibility Fairness Compassion Perseverance Courage

 Honesty - Being straightforward, sincere, truthful, free of fraud, deception or misrepresentation. Transparency - To be open, honest and available, to provide clear, accurate, and understandable information (e.g. in the context of financial disclosures). Some ethicists have argued that ethical business practices are best measured by a company's character and commitment to transparency than by their social vision or rhetoric (e.g. Jon Entine)

Honesty: Builds/Maintains Trust Fosters Community Makes Communication more Efficient & Effective Demonstrates Respect for the Dignity of Others

 Respect:To give particular attention to, show consideration for, or hold in high or special regard (MerriamWebster's Online Dictionary, 10th Edition)  Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose. - Immanuel Kant, Prussian geographer and philosopher (1724-1804) Tolerance:Demonstrating sympathy for, indulging, or making allowances for, beliefs or practices differing from, or conflicting with, one's own. Love: In the Christian context, from the Gk., agapeo, an active and beneficent interest in, and concern for, the well-being of another. It is given unconditionally and unselfishly. It involves a clear determination of will and judgment (i.e. a responsible choice). A loving person, honestly (Rom. 12:9) gives respect and demonstrates compassion. Demonstrating such love often requires courage. The source of such love comes from above (James 1:17).

 Responsibility/Accountability/Reliability:Moral Leaders take responsibility for their own actions/failures and those of their companies and they demand accountability from their subordinates. (e.g. at Dell there s no The dog ate my homework. Dell ruthlessly exposes weak spots during grueling quarterly reviews and

execs know they had better fix the problem before the next meeting. What You Don t Know About Dell , Business Week, Nov. 30, 2003, p.79) Involves a commitment to competent quality performance. Implies fidelity to promises and other commitments and not making promises that cannot be kept, such as committing to unrealistic delivery dates. Also calls for acknowledgment of implicit commitments, such as the protection of confidences.  Fair / Fairness:just, equitable, impartial, unbiased, objective. Involves a elimination (or at least a minimalization) of one's own feelings, prejudices and desires, so as to achieve a proper balance of conflicting interests. Implies an equitable distribution of burdens and benefits. John Rawls argues in A Theory of Justice that rules are fair if they are rules that the people operating under them would have agreed to, had they been given an opportunity to accept or reject them beforehand.  Compassion:"sympathetic consciousness of another's distress together with a desire to alleviate it" [Webster's 7th New Collegiate Dictionary], fellow feeling, the emotion of caring concern; the opposite of cruelty, in Hebrewrahamanut, from the word rehem, 'womb', based on the idea of sibling love (coming from from the same womb). "The word 'care' finds its roots in the Gothic 'Kara' which means lament. The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with.. . . A friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other [now] is what really matters." [Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, p. 105]  Perseverance/Fortitude - steadfast determination to continue on despite adversity usually over a long period of time.  Courage: the ability to disregard fear; bravery. The Latin root of this word is cur, which means heart. Courage literally means to take heart . Fear exists along a continuum. Courage involves recognizing a reasonable amount of fear or nervousness, facing it and then taking an intelligent risk. Moral courage involves standing up for one s principles, in spite of possible adverse consequences to such things as reputation or emotional well-being.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other. - Samuel Johnson Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. - Clare Booth Luce (1903 - 1987), in Reader's Digest, 1979 Courage is the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand. - Robert Louis Stevenson Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. - C.S. Lewis Courage is strength of mind, capable of conquering whatever threatens the attainment of the highest good. - St. Thomas Aquinas Courage is a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger and a mental willingness to endure it. General William T. Sherman (for whom the Sherman tank was named). Courage is being scared to death . . . and saddling up anyway. - John Wayne

  

  

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

- Peter Drucker

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. - Maya Angelou (1928 - ) The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena... who strives valiantly... who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt

Both individuals and organizations hold values A corporation is said to manifest its values in its corporate culture Corporate cultureis loosely defined as the attitudes, behaviors and personalities that make up a company and that shape its behavior and reputation, or as Elizabeth Kiss of the Kenan Institute for Ethics puts it, corporate culture is how we perceive, think, feel and do things around here. Most employees take their cues from the company culture and behave accordingly.

 A business derives its character from the character of the people who conduct the business. - Ricky W. Griffin, Management, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company (2002)  "Moral behavior is concerned primarily with the interpersonal dimension of our behavior: how we treat one another individually and in groups and, increasingly, other species and the environment." The key here is that morality brings us into contact with others and asks us to consider the quality of that contact.  Quote from The Leadership Compass, John Wilcox and Susan Ebbs, as quoted in Everyday Ethics, by Thomas Shanks, S.J., Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. According to Ethical or Moral, Values, Principles or Standards Whose Values? Personal Family Peers Religious Company Community, Regional, National, International Learned Where? Home

School Church (or other place of worship) Life Experience Work Experience Books News Media Entertainment Media

 In the middle of an interview for acceptance to a prestigious Ivy League school back east, the interviewer asked his sure of himself candidate, If no one would ever find out, and no one got hurt, would you lie for $1M? The young man thought for a moment and said, If no one found out, and no one was hurt? Sure, I think I would! The interviewer then asked, Would you lie for a dime? The young man shot back, No way, what kind of man do you think I am? The interviewer responded, I have already determined that, I am just trying to determine your price.  So fearful were the ancient Chinese of their enemies on the north that they built the Great Wall of China, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was so high they knew no one could climb over it,& so thick that nothing could break it down. Then they settled back to enjoy their security. But during the first 100 years of the wall s existence, China was invaded 3 times. Not once did the enemy break down the wall or climb over its top. Each time they bribed a gatekeeper & marched right through the gates. According to the historians, the Chinese were so busy relying upon the walls of stone that they forgot to teach integrity to their children.  In the 1950s a psychologist, Stanton Samenow, and a psychiatrist, Samuel Yochelson, sharing the conventional wisdom that crime is caused by environment, set out to prove their point. They began a 17year study involving thousands of hours of clinical testing of 250 inmates here in the District of Columbia. To their astonishment, they discovered that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment, poverty, or oppression. Instead, crime is the result of individuals making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. In their 1977 work The Criminal Personality, they concluded that the answer to crime is a "conversion of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle." In 1987, Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein came to similar conclusions in their book Crime and Human Nature. They determined that the cause of crime is a lack of proper moral training among young people during the morally formative years, particularly ages 1 to 6.  33% of teens would act unethically to get ahead or to make more money if there was no chance of getting caught, according to a new Junior Achievement/Harris Interactive Poll of 624 teens between the ages of 13 and 18. 25% said they were not sure and only 42% said they would not. These results confirm our belief that ethics education must begin in elementary school. said Barry Salzberg, U.S. Managing Partner of Deloitte &Touche. Duty-Based v. Outcome-Based Ethics Duty (Deontology) Duty is an act done simply for the sake of what is right. Duty is determined by revealed truths and involves universal principles

Outcome (Consequentialism)

Often religion-based e.g. Kant s Categorical Imperative  "Everyone is obligated to act only in ways that respect the intrinsic value, human dignity and moral rights of all persons." Places High Value on Individual Rights

Justice: demonstrating fairness, equity, impartiality, righteous action,

Ethical if best outcome for the majority Involves cost-benefit analysis e.g. Bentham & Mill s Utilitarianism  "Of any two actions, the most ethical one is that which will produce the greatest balance of benefits over harms." De-emphasizes individual rights

To some, justice is about conformity to truth. To others, its about conformity to law But law and justice are 2 different concepts.  The law is something we must live with. Justice is somewhat harder to come by. - Sherlock Holmes, in The Case of the Red Circle.   This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Justice occurs on earth when power and authority between people are exercised in conformity with God s standards of moral excellence. - Gary Haugen, in The Good News About Injustice, InterVarsity Press, 1999.