Analysis of Ethical Theories

This report analyzes the importance of ethical behavior in the workplace and explores various theories of ethics. It also discusses the ethical theory adopted by the royal commission and the rules of the APES 110 code of ethics applicable to Freedom Insurance sales agents.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
Analysis of Ethical Theories
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
Executive summary
The aim of the report is to analyse the importance of ethical behaviour in the workplace. The
report contains an explanation of the various theories of ethics and the best ethical theory that
will best suited for the royal commission. The report further contains an elaboration of the
apes 110 code of ethics.
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3

2ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
Ethical theory adopted by royal commission.............................................................................9
The rules of the apes 110 that are applicable for freedom insurance sales agents...................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
Reference..................................................................................................................................13

3ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
Introduction
Maintaining ethical behaviour is essential for any organisation, it guide the
organisation to operate in a manner that help the company to understand the art of behaving
with the customers and the other stakeholders of the company. The ethical code of the
organisation contain all the details of the behavioural issues that the employees of the
company should follow while interacting with the external parties. Several ethical issues that
are related with the organisation and the organisation faces several challenges while handling
such issues. It became a challenge for the companies to overcome the ethical issues as that
includes various factors, which are difficult to solve. The theories that are relevant with the
organisation are teleology, deontology, relativism, virtue ethics, and justice ethics. The
organisation have to make appropriate decision to manage the ethical issues that arise while
the organisation continue operations.
Discussion
An ethical issue crop up when an organisation do something, which is not morally
acceptable for the society. Some of the example of ethical issues are stated below
Is it is required to revalue the assets to allow the company to meet estimated profit or
to devalue the assets to meet with the accounting standards (Basta 2016).
Is it is justified to manipulate the work sheet for other colleagues so that they can go
home before the scheduled business hours.
Ethics rise the question of what is good and what is bad, the goodness theories aims
on the end result of decision making or the positives that it creates.
Obligation theories aims on the motives that satisfy the actions.

4ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
The ethical theories that are related with every organisation are explained below
 Teleology
 Deontology
 Relativism
 Virtue ethics
 Justice ethics
Explanation of the teleology theory of ethics
The teleology theory of ethics considers two factors these ate egoism and utilitarianism
Egoism
Ethical egoism is the moral act of an individual. The ethical egoism is different from
the psychological egoism, which states that people can only act for their own interest. In the
modern days people become very self-centred and they only thinks about the benefits of their
own and neglect the interest of others. The two major problems that rise from ethical egoism
is that the ethical egoism cannot provide any solution when any problem crop up which
results into conflict of interest. There are many ethical issues which are related with egoism.
for example if any industry wants to eject waste to a river the people who resides on the bank
of the river will oppose the ethical egoism just advises the parties to do whatever they think
justified. It will not give any suggest any type of solution (Annas 2015).
Ethical egoism does not follow any principle of impartiality.
It is unethical to discriminate against people on the ground of race gender, or ethnic
origin. The ethical egoism states that it should not try to be impartial.

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Theory of utilitarianism
The theory of utilitarianism states that whether actions should be taken based on the
results of those actions. The main idea of the theory is that whether any action is wrong or
right it depends on the effects of the action. the policy of the utilitarian’s is that they always
believe that the purpose of the ethics is to ,make life better by doing some actions which will
bring happiness for the others and decreasing the negative approach that brings unhappiness
to any others life (Tenenbaum, 2017).the basic points of utilitarianism are stated below
It is concerned with consequences
The theory of utilitarianism considers analysis of cost benefits
It only considers goodness for greatest number of people.
Theory of deontology
The deontology theory is focused on the rights of the individual persons and not on
the consequences of the actions to protect the right of the individual. The theory of
deontology believes in equal respect and views certain characteristics as intrinsic right.
The theory of deontology suggests that individuals have certain basic liberty like
agreement confidentiality talking and due procedure. Deontological ethics is a theory of
ethics based on a no consequentialist view of the persons and moral decision-making .the
term deontology comes from the Greek word for duty. Thus, deontological ethics maintains
that actions are not right by their significances. Relatively factors other than good
consequences determine the rightness of actions. Unlike utilitarianism, which states that “the
ends justify the means” deontology states, “it is the mean that are important”.
Deontological ethics – the categorical imperative

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Deontological ethics is grounded in the categorical imperative. The categorical
imperative simply states that our internal responses are more revealing than our outward
professions when an individual flip the moral actions back on ourselves (Shin et al 2015).
Deontologist theory generally rejects the any moral theory grounded in god or higher
absolute truth.at its core deontological ethics is a naturalistic duty based theory of objective,
cultural morality that somehow transcends and connects the subjective realities of each
individual in the culture (Sovacool, et al 2016).
Deontological ethics how individual really determine what is wrong and what is right
The rule of deontology has two factors, which are:
Rule deontologists and act deontologists
Act deontology
An act deontology is an ethical theory that gives emphasis on the logical priority to
particular moral judgements rather than following any rules or principles. The act deontology
is perfect for every situation as it makes judgement of every situation and take decision based
on that judgement. The theory of act deontology states that the consequence of the act will
decide that whether that act will be considered as ethical or unethical. The act deontology
give more importance on the roles and duties of the social contracts play in determining the
moral behaviour of any act (Shah Anwar & Irani 2017).
Act deontology never give emphasis on the individual characteristics but it give
importance on the actions of the individual.
Rule deontology
A rule deontology theory is a deontological theory that presents logical priority to
rules rather than any particular judgements or principles. Rule deontology is based on the

7ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
ethical issue in making ethical decision. Rule deontology does not make comparison but it
only follows a predetermined rule. Rule deontology is of no use where the specific rule
cannot be used to make the judgement that whether the decision is ethical or not. Rule
deontology ignore the special roles that consequences duties social contacts paly in the moral
system, especially with respect to determine the appropriate standard to evaluate moral
behaviour. The theory of rule deontology give more importance on the criteria, which is
related with the character development of any individual (Scherer 2018).
The rule deontology often create dilemma in doing any act. for example if a computer
engineer finds that a particular country is going to launch a nuclear missile on another
country and that leads to major collapse of the country. The engineer knows how to hack the
network of the missile but the rule deontology will prevent the engineer from doing so as
hacking is unethical for the profession of the engineer (Paquette Sommerfeldt & Kent 2015).
Relativism theory of ethics
Ethical relativism that explains the morality is related with the rules of the culture.
The theory of relativism states that whether an action is right or wrong depends on the
ethically right in one society but it can be wrong for another society. For the ethical theorist
there is no rule that can be internationally applicable to all peoples at all times. If ethical
relativism is right then there can be no common structure for resolving ethical disputes for
attainment arrangement on ethical matters among members of dissimilar cultures (Drake
2016).
The theory of ethical relativism is not acceptable by many ethicists. According to
them that it may be possible that may be the ethical principles may differ for different culture
but it can be stated that the basic principle for every ethical actions are same (Goncalves &
Santos2017).

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Moral relativism is the idea that there is no worldwide or complete set of moral
values. It is a variety of morality that believers ‘to each her own” and those who follow it say
“who am I to judge” (Turrens 2018).
The moral relativism can be understood in several ways
Expressive moral contingency also known as social contingency says that the moral
standards are culturally distinct which is normally true. Certainly, there may be a few morals
that seem closely universal, such as uprightness and esteem but many changes seem
crossways nation when individuals assess moral values everywhere the world (Demuijnck
2015).
Meta ethical moral contingency statuses that there are no detached grounds for
favouring the moral values of one culture over another. Civilisations make their moral
selections based on their single beliefs customs and performs. And in fact individuals
inclination to believe that the right moral ideals are the values that exist in their own
philosophy (Mallia 2015).
Normative moral relativism is the idea that all societies should accept each others
different moral values given that there are no universal moral principles . most philosophers
however disagree with the fact. For example just because bribery is acceptable in some
cultures it is not acceptable that all cultures will promote the culture of bribery (Dörr &
Hollnbuchner 2017).
Moral relativism is on the other hand states that there is continuously one correct
answer to any moral query. Undeniably, those who obey to moral contingency would say
“when in Rome do as the romans do” (Shaw McMaster & Newholm 2016).
Virtue ethics

9ANALYSIS OF ETHICAL THEORIES
The virtue ethics is the mission to realise the need to live a life of moral character.
This character based approach to morality assumes that individual acquire the virtue through
practice. By committed being honest, brave, generous a person, develop a admirable and
moral personality. According to the ethicist by giving more emphasis on the virtuous
customs, people will likely make the right choice when confronted with ethical contests
(MacAskill 2016).
.
Justice theory of ethics
The word justice is related with fairness. However, every people wants justice but the
meaning of justice is different from different individuals. For example, communal fairness is
the view that everyone ask for equivalent financial radical and communal chances regardless
of the race gender or religion. Distributive honesty refers to the reasonable distribution of
assets in the society. Conservational justice is the fair conduct of all people with respect to
environmental loads and assistances (Cointe Bonnet & Boissier 2016).
Fairness is one of the most significant moral values in the scopes of law and politics.
Legal and political systems that preserve law and order are needed, but they cannot complete
either unless they also achieve justice (Lapsley 2016).
Ethical theory adopted by royal commission
Among all the theories of the ethics, the royal commission should adopt the
deontological theory of ethics. As the deontology, theory of ethics deals with the actions of
the individual and the results of the actions will determine whether the action is ethical or
unethical. The deontology theory has two factors that is the rule deontology and the act
deontology. The company by applying these theories that company can bring ethics among
the activities of the company. The company has recently faced several unethical practices in

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particular to the banking and insurance departments. It came to the notice of the royal
commission that the sales personnel are taking unethical means to meet their target, which
affects the wealth of the clients and the reputation of the company. Act deontology judges
every situation and based on the judgement make decision so this will be very suitable for the
company (Kotzee Carter & Siegel 2019).
The act deontology measures all actions and then give judgements give decisions so
by applying this theory the company will be able to take decisions in accordance to the acts
that has been done by the employees of the company.
The rules of the apes 110 that are applicable for freedom insurance sales agents
The sales team of the freedom insurance for their own interest use inappropriate
tactics that results in to unethical practices and that also results into breach of the provision of
the apes 110. The company faces issues relating to the ethical issues and for that reason it
faces customer complaints which hampers their operations (Yazdani & Murad 2015).
The structure of the apes 110 are stated below
 Identification of the threats to the basic principles
 Evaluate the significance of the threats and
 Apply protections where essential to either eradicate the pressures or decrease them to
an suitable level.
The code contains five basic principles these are enumerated below
 Integrity
 Objectivity
 Professional skill and due care
 Confidentiality

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 Professional behaviour
Integrity
Integrity is the requirement to be straight forward and honest in the dealing to not
have anything to hide. Integrity is the pillar of every successful and respected professional.
So the sales agent of freedom insurance should contain integrity among them.
Objectivity
For every professions it is essential to have predetermined objective based on which
the individual will delegate their duty. The sales agents of the company should have fixed an
objective and should act accordingly. The objective of the sales personnel should be ethical
and moral (Winkler & Duminy 2016).
Professional skill and due care
The core ethical duty of a professional is to be able to do what they hold themselves
out as being able to do. This is a variation of the integrity principle. section 130 sets out the
principle of professional competence in more detail. the obligation placed on members are:
To maintain specialised knowledge and ability at the level essential to ensure that clients or
employees receive proficient professional service
To act assiduously in agreement with the appropriate practical and professional values when
providing professional facility (Vallor Green & Raicu 2018).
The sales agent of the freedom insurance company should also follow the ethical professional
skill so that there acts does not breaches the code of conduct specified by the APES 110.
Confidentiality

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Confidentiality is the main ethical factor that the sales personnel has to maintain. The
requirement to comply with the principle of confidentiality continues even after the member
client or member employer relationship has finished. However, there are times when a
professional is expected to break this principle and this is explained in the section 140 of the
code.
Professional behaviour
The sales personnel of the freedom insurance company has never shown professional
behaviour which becomes the major reason of the raising of unethical issues against them.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that the royal commission has adopted
the policy of deontology theory of ethics that enables the company to bring more
transparency in the activities of the company. There are several theories of ethics among
which the theory of deontology best suited with requirement of the company. The apes 110
code of conduct on the other hand prescribes the framework for the sales professionals of the
freedom insurance following which the company will e able restrict the inappropriate sales
tactics adopted by the agents.

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