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Hello and welcome to
Henry Stewart Talks,
a talk about business ethics.
This is lecture 1,
Ethics, and Why it Matters.
My name is Don Mayer.
I am a professor of business
ethics and legal studies
at the University of Denver
in Denver, Colorado.
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In this lecture, we ask and
answer several questions.
What is ethics?
How is ethics different
from morality?
Why do we make so
many moral judgments?
And why does it
matter to be ethical?
Before we get to definitions,
consider some common sayings that
relate to ethics or morality.
"It is better to be
lucky than good."
"Nice guys finish last."
Oh, and that goes
for ladies too.
"It's who you know that
matters, not what you know."
"Winning is not the most important
thing; it's the only thing."
"Business ethics,
that's an oxymoron."
I hope that when these
lectures are done
you'll be able to put these common
sayings in their proper context.
Here is the spoiler alert.
Nice people do not finish last.
They often finish first,
mainly because other people
trust and respect them.
And oftentimes, being an ethical
person can create good luck,
both in life and in business.
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Here are some statements that
will help us see whether
having morals is all that
different from having ethics.
Suppose we say Paula
is an ethical person,
and let's also say Paula
is a moral person.
In both statements, we
understand Paula to have
certain qualities of
character that we approve of.
But do you really see different qualities
of character in the two statements?
If we don't, it's
because people see
these statements as
roughly equivalent.
Likewise, the statements
"Paul is an unethical person,
and Paul is an immoral person"
have roughly the same meaning.
Some of my business colleagues would say
that ethics is the study of morality.
And others would say
morality is personal,
but ethics is moral
conduct in public life.
But ordinary language statements
about Paul and Paula reveal
we could see both terms
as roughly equivalent.
In short, while each
word, "moral," "ethical,"
may have different connotations
for different people,
for our purposes we can
use them interchangeably
and most people will not see
a meaningful difference.
