Business Ethics: Diverse Perspectives from Conversations and Analysis

This discussion post presents a series of conversations exploring different perspectives on business ethics. The first conversation involves a debate with a neighbor who holds a cynical view of business ethics, arguing that businesses operate by exploiting people. The response defends the necessity of ethics for long-term survival, highlighting the importance of ethical standards in a world of informed consumers. The second conversation is with a friend who provides a more nuanced view, discussing the descriptive and normative dimensions of business ethics, and the role of virtue ethics. The friend emphasizes the importance of enterprise guiding employees in the right direction. The final conversation with the author's mother emphasizes the importance of considering minorities and the broader impact of business decisions on the community, underscoring the ethical responsibility of businesses beyond statutory obligations. The post highlights the importance of ethical considerations in business practices from diverse viewpoints.

Summary one
Business ethics is another form of applied ethics; a single statement became contentious
ground between my neighbour and me. While we were having our conversation regarding the
professional ethics, our opinions were poles apart. However, I was feeling very much
convinced by this logic of argument because according to his there can be no ethic in
business because business is an organisation that operate my making people foolish. I think
his understanding was flawed because; business does not has hazardous impact. By stating
this, I am not suggesting that business always yield positive effects but I tried to stop him for
overgeneralising the business. This is because if business needs to survive for a long run, it
needs to implement certain ethical standards, or else it will be digging its own grave. In my
defence, I described that people are no longer illiterate, they are aware of the duplicitous
business and a business without any ethics cannot last long because, in its interaction with the
non-economic concerns it will serves as useless. Therefore, it is very much necessary for very
business enterprise to have create its own mould of ethics. I also started that ethics not
necessary means virtue ethics where the business leader need to virtuous enough but by
ethics, it only means for “greater good”. Even with these of debates, I think I could not
change his mind, partly because he was adamant and because he was experienced. According
to him, there is nothing with is long-term because people tend to live in moments and this is
also the reason consumer industry is rising so high. They have been successfully been able to
convert these desires to commodity that can be exchanged for profit. According to me, his
analysis was far too rational without any informed knowledge, the ground for which he was
advocating were mostly based on experience and was characterised by practical knowledge.
Therefore it turns out that he believed every person is selfish in nature and any organization
created by them will eventually turn out to be self-centres. However, he lacked the
understanding that even if the innate tendency of human being is to harm people but one can

progress in that unless and until, they end up in harming someone. My neighbour completely
lack this kind of sends of judgement ad was promisingly pessimistic in nature.
Summary two
My second conversation was with my friend who seemed my classmate too, thus, needless to
say, I enjoyed such conversation with him. This is because he was reflective enough and had
a theoretical and well practical understanding of how business works. As our conversation
began I felts that there are some kid of similarities and also difference in our opinion.
According to his argument, business ethics has both the normative and the description
dimension, but for some practical reason, business administration cannot invest their time and
resources on the descriptive methods. I could not differ from his point but I also commented
that, if the structure is falling to accommodate certain changes, people should realise they,
themselves are the agents of change. Therefore, I tried to bring the concept of virtue ethics
and tried to show him that t is not always structural but sometime people should realise that it
is theory duty to oblige to certain virtue ethics. To this set of argument he stated that people
are just mere resource to the large enterprise and it is the duty and also interest of the
enterprise to guide them in the right direction. People who work as employees come from
various occupations and they have relative experience, therefore they will be no common
reference point of ethics because moralities ought to differ. Therefore it is very much
important for the enterprise to hold on to ethical decision. We also shared our opinion of
ethical dilemmas and how it can affects the longer and short term goals of the company.
However, I really enjoyed talking to my friend, because his point judgment was quiet
accurate and I understood the role what the structures play.
Summary three
This conversation was with my mother, and I feel she really made valued point throughout
our discussion. According to her business is not a disjointed part of reality and it needs to co-

exist therefore it will be bound to follow the track that will promise greater good. However, I
feel what my mother concerns was regarding the minorities. It often happened due to great
vision one misses the marginal section because it is plays for the ‘greater’ good. I stated that
if one looks at the long-term goal, one ought to forego the marginal section. To this
statement, she got a little infuriated; again, because she is my mother, however she made a
valid point stating that there is no means or ends because in both cases it is the humans.
Humans being the means and they are ends therefore ethics and moral responsibility is
beyond any statutory obligation. Again it is important to realise that business enterprises take
risk and that needs investment and a particularly in this region there is no way one can be
philanthropic. She admitted and giggled a bit but she stated that business needs to involve the
needs of the community. she made e understand, being ethical is not to disregard the essential
facts but to increase the burden of responsibility, it only the a company can become
successful. Both in normative and descriptive way, it is very essential to consider the present
situation and plan strategic so that even with a failure one can run the show. Needless to say
she made a profound contribution to my thinking and I really got to learn so much from.