1. Business Law
Ethics in Our Law

2. Ethics
Have you ever known a circumstance in which people might believe it would be proper to break a rule or a law?

3. In Our Society,
How Do We Know or Determine What Is Right or Wrong?

4. Ethics
Deciding What Is Right or Wrong in a Reasoned, Impartial Manner.
Emotions Can Not Be Involved

5. Example
A computer engineer who lost his job because he ate two pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting. Although he didn't work in the department that held the meeting where the pizza was served, Garrison figured it was fair game since the company had bought it and it looked like it was going to be wasted if it wasn't eaten. What he didn't know is that several other employees had already worked out a plan to take the leftover pizza home with them. When they discovered one-third of the leftover pizza pie had been eaten, the employees reported Garrison to management, ultimately leading to his firing last November — a month after he ate the food.
What would your emotions tell you to do?
What would your logical side tell you to do?

6. Elements of the Ethics Definition

7. Decisions About Right or Wrong Actions
The decision must affect you personally
The decision must affect others in a significant way

8. Reasoned Decisions
Decisions must be based on reason, or logic, instead of emotions
This is more consistent from person to person and over time
Decisions based on emotion are not always wrong, but emotions can vary from person to person and from incident to incident

9. Impartial Decisions
Impartiality means the same standards apply to everyone
Law is the institution
When you injure the law, you injure others
Impartiality balances our self-interest with the interests of others

10. Check Up Get with a partner
Create an example to illustrate each of the elements of the Ethics definition
Be ready to share your examples with the class

11. How Do We Reason About Right and Wrong?
Consequential Reasoning
The end justifies the means
Deontological Reasoning
The means are not justified by the end.

12. Consequential Reasoning
Based on consequences or results
Acts by themselves are not “right” or “wrong”
An act that produces good results is good
An act that produces bad results is bad

13. Steps in Consequential Reasoning
1. Describe alternative actions
2. Forecast consequences
3. Evaluate consequences
4. Make a decision based upon the best consequence

14. During Evaluation, You Must
Select the standard for judging (“The Good”)
Count the persons affected by the choice
Choose the greatest good for the greatest number of people

15. Check Up Get with a partner
Select a school rule and explain its ethical reasoning using the steps to consequential reasoning
Be prepared to share with the class

16. Deontological Reasoning
In deontological reasoning, the acts themselves are judged as right or wrong

17. Standard of Judging is based on
Recognized authority
Law, scripture, etc.
An act may be wrong even if it benefits more people that it injures
Decisions inconsistent with reasoning are ethically wrong

18. Reasoning Used In Deontological Reasoning
Universalizing
magnifying an action to make it fit everyone
Example: If everyone lied, then we would not trust each other so there would be no point to lying

19. Reasoning Used In Deontological Reasoning
Moral Rights
rights we have because of our status as human beings
Example
Everyone has the right to an education

20. Reasoning Used In Deontological Reasoning
Natural rights
moral rights protected by law (natural law)
Example
Everyone has to be enrolled in school from age 6 to 18

21. Reasoning Used In Deontological Reasoning
False rights
claims based on the desires of an individual instead of humanity as a whole
Example
An employee claims that they can work at their own pace instead of what their boss asks of them

22. Check Up Get with your partner
Write 3 different situations where you would use deontological reasoning. You can not use the examples given in class.

23. How Do Laws Reflect Consequential Ethics?
Lawmaking bodies often pass laws based on the greatest good for the greatest number (majority rule)

24. The legislative branch often works from a consequential perspective
Laws are not “right” or “wrong;” they are only good if they affect most people favorably

25. Example:
In a coastal city of California, residents often could not sleep because people were driving late at night with their car windows down and their stereos playing full blast. On holidays, people put large home stereos in the back of their trucks and played them as loud as possible. In response, the city council enacted a law making it illegal to generate noise in public above a certain decibel.
Is there an ethical justification for this law?

26. How Do Laws Reflect Deontological Ethics?
Laws desired by the majority sometimes conflict with moral rights
Example: Slavery
Civil rights are personal, human rights granted through the Constitution
If a law violates human rights, it is usually declared unconstitutional by the courts

27. The court system often operates from a deontological perspective rather than a consequential perspective
Base their decisions on precedent

28. How Are Other Ethical Goals Reflected in Our Laws?
Sometimes our laws are based on arbitrary rules, not on majority rule or natural rights
Example: ????
Sometimes these rules are not completely fair

29. Check Up
What type of ethics does the US Constitution use?

30. Why Are We Obligated to Obey Laws?
Ethics demands that we obey
We consent to be governed by law
We want to avoid punishment

31. Are We Ever Justified in Violating the Law?
Civil disobedience is open, peaceful violation of a law to protest its injustices.

32. It is ethical only when:
The disobedience is nonviolent
The disobedience does not advance one’s own self interest
The disobedience is public and one willingly accepts the punishment

33. What Happens When You Violate the Law?
You Are Called Scofflaws
People who do not respect or comply with the law

34. Applying Ethics Today
Pick a controversial topi