Business Ethics Tutorial Assessment - Business Development Module

This document presents a tutorial assessment on business ethics, addressing key concepts and theories through five questions. The assessment begins by differentiating between law and ethics, followed by an exploration of universalist and relativist approaches to ethics. The third question delves into utilitarianism, analyzing its application in a business context, specifically Facebook's actions related to news content in Australia. The assessment then examines Kantian ethics, focusing on the categorical imperative and its implications for employee rights and duties regarding vaccination. Finally, the document explores virtue ethics, assessing its relevance in scenarios like executive compensation. Each question is answered with detailed explanations and examples, providing a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

Tutorial Assessment

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Q1.....................................................................................................................................................3
Q2.....................................................................................................................................................3
2A.................................................................................................................................................3
2B.................................................................................................................................................3
Q3.....................................................................................................................................................4
3A.................................................................................................................................................4
3B.................................................................................................................................................4
3C.................................................................................................................................................4
Q4.....................................................................................................................................................5
4A.................................................................................................................................................5
4B.................................................................................................................................................5
4C.................................................................................................................................................5
Q5.....................................................................................................................................................5
5A.................................................................................................................................................5
5B.................................................................................................................................................6
5C.................................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Q1
Law refers to the general rules and regulations which are formulated by the government
of a nation which legally binds everyone resides in that country. On the other hand, ethics can be
defined as the code of conduct which is basically framed by community and society without any
legal binding. For example, pertaining to the Covid-19, the law stated by the Australian
government to ensure social distancing and mandatory wearing of mask as the minimum legal
requirements which is needed to be followed by every business (Difference Between Law and
Ethics. 2018). This is referred to as the law. On the other hand, someone may choose to follow
the code of conduct in regard to follow the rules strictly.
Ethics refers to the moral values, beliefs and the principles of an individual which helps
in guiding the behaviour and the attitude of that person and in contrast to it, is the laws which are
set by the government and required to be obeyed by the society. For instance, businesses can just
limited the safety measures till what is asked by the government which is law while it may out of
ethical norm can impose other safety measures for ensuring health and safety of its employees
and customers.
Q2
2A
The universalist approach states that it is possible to form a set of norms which can be applicable
to all cultures equally but might fail for the intellectual dialogue on ethics as there is no
agreement across cultures pertaining to what is universal (Lakatos, 2018). Relativist approach is
based on the idea that the activity might be wrong for one but right for others or it might be
wrong for one culture but right for all other culture.
2B
From the relativists view point, the ethical issue pertaining to women wearing long shirts and
pants while competing in a tournament held in Qatar is right, as it is against the culture and
tradition of the host country. Since, one culture can be right for one but wrong for others. But on
the basis of the universalist view point, women wearing shorts is universally accepted but there is
no agreement in respect to it.

Q3
3A
Utilitarianism theory advocates the action which results into happiness and opposes the
actions which could harm happiness. This approach is directed towards taking decision in regard
to political, social or economic. It puts more emphasis over the statement that an action would be
considered right if it is for the betterment and happiness of the larger group of people, society or
community (Purshouse, 2018). This approach helps the larger group of people through the way
of using the fairest methods. It makes use of the more ethical actions as possible in order to
achieve the higher benefits of the people. But its is difficult to achieve as these ethics are
challenging in respect to maintaining the business culture. In addition, it makes people focus
more on themselves at the expense of others.
3B
Benefits:
 Facebook attempted to comply with law and banned and stopped the allowance of news
content as one of its service in Australia. This is the right and ethical way used by
Facebook without any controversy to meet with the solution (Vearrier and Henderson,
2021).
 It will no longer to required to pay to the news organization for the news articles which
were distributed by the Facebook users.
Harms
 Banning has resulted into putting restriction over the Australian publishers from sharing
or posting of the links over the Facebook pages.
 This has resulted into harming the Australian media as of every A$100 (£56; $77) which
is spent on the digital adverting, A$81 goes to Google and Facebook. Thus, it has resulted
into negatively affecting the Australian media and the marketing system.
3C
The Utilitarian would assess the action of Facebook in different as it would agree to the laws of
the Australia would be ready to pay fees to Australian news channel as it will result into making
the large number of population happy, also in terms of cost (Savulescu, Persson and Wilkinson,
2020). The action taken by Facebook might not be considered right.

Q4
4A
According to Kant, a person's action determines his/her moral worth but there is more to this
rather than just seeing action is right or wrong (Ward, 2019). Kant stated that a person is good or
bad is based upon the motivation of their action and not over the goodness of the outcome of the
actions taken. If a person desires cause them to do things then that action cannot give them moral
worth.
4B
Rights or duties of employers
 It is the duty of the employer to convince the employees to get vaccinated which might
include some sort of force like employees who got vaccinated will continue their job.
 It is the duty to have a one on one conversation with the employees regarding their view
on taking vaccination.
Rights or duties of workers
 Workers on their will, can get themselves vaccinated and no one can put pressure on
them.
 Workers are having the right to consult with their employers in respect to vaccination.
4C
The categorical imperative refers to the idea proposed by Kant in which in imperative
means what a person must do like if a person is thirty it is imperative to have a drink. It is
categorical in nature when it is true at all times and situations (Lindner and Bentzen, 2018). The
right stated that the workers can take vaccine on their willingness this does not meet with the
requirements of categorical imperative because as per Kant there are things a person must do
irrespective of the circumstances and an ethical person will follow universal law not considering
the situation. But, here workers are taking decision based on the situation and no one can
pressurize them.
Q5
5A
The virtue ethics is a person instead of action based as it basically looks at the virtue or
the moral character of the people who is taking the action instead of the ethical duties or the
outcome of the actions. It does not deal with the right or wrong actions but provides guidance

over the behaviour of a person. Therefore, it is focused on determining the character of the
person. Thus, there is not ethical or unethical actions.
5B
Virtue ethics is more into understanding the person rather than the actions taken by them.
Thus, in the context of CEO being paid high might be ethical in respect to the enormous and
valuable work they provide to an organization. In contrast to it, under the Utilitarian Approach,
the action is assessed based upon the outcome, for instance, the net benefits and costs to the
stakeholders of the organization at an individual level (Gardiner, 2018). The commission has
resulted into banning the commission and brokers in the financial services which has resulted
into savings for the customers as well as the financial institutions. This has lead to greater
goodness for large number of people with minimum harm. Therefore, increase in remuneration
cannot be considered unethical.
5C
Virtues:
 The involvement of the Royal commission in misconduct in Banking and Financial
services resulted into ban on the commission and brokers in middle resulted into cost
saving. This the motive was right (Hayne, 2019).
 The involvement of the same lead to the attaining good ends.
Vices
 But, in terms of vices, it failed to meet with the idea of reducing cost as saved money is
paid to the CEO as an increase in salary.
 It failed to meet up with the desired or expected outcome of the banning.
Therefore, it can be stated from the above that virtue ethics is relevant in order to attain right
outcome. It is focused on dealing with the honesty and the morality of the individual and also
states that through the way of practising good habits will result into making moral and virtuous
person. Thus, a virtue ethicist is important in order to undertake various meaningful and right
decision for the betterment of everyone and not just for the sake and interest of oneself.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hayne, K. (2019). Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and
financial services industry. Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking,
Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
Lakatos, I. (2018). Thoughts on Universalism versus Cultural Relativism, with Special Attention
to Women's Rights. Pecs J. Int'l & Eur. L., p.6.
Lindner, F. and Bentzen, M. M. (2018). A formalization of Kant's second formulation of the
categorical imperative. arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.03160.
Vearrier, L. and Henderson, C. M. (2021), January. Utilitarian principlism as a framework for
crisis healthcare ethics. In Hec Forum (pp. 1-16). Springer Netherlands.
Purshouse, C. (2018). Utilitarianism as tort theory: countering the caricature. Legal
Studies, 38(1), pp.24-41.
Savulescu, J., Persson, I. and Wilkinson, D. (2020). Utilitarianism and the
pandemic. Bioethics, 34(6), pp.620-632.
Ward, K. (2019). The development of Kant's view of ethics. John Wiley & Sons.
Gardiner, S. M. (2018). Introduction: Virtue ethics, here and now. In Virtue Ethics, Old and
New (pp. 1-8). Cornell University Press.
Online
Difference Between Law and Ethics. 2018. [Online]. Available
Through:<https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-law-and-ethics.html>.