7. Virtue and Community
Outcomes:
By the end of this module you should be able to:
Describe why it is important to avoid vices and cultivate virtues.
Describe how ethical obligations relate to community membership.
Determine why the corporate character of business organizations should be so significant.
Video Lectures:
7.1 Virtues and excellences (12:31)
Virtues are moral excellences, which are skills and character traits that enable human beings and organizations to flourish in cooperation with others having similar traits. Our virtues are parts of our identity as individuals. Virtues are usually the mean between two vices. Derivative virtues are character traits that are justified because they help an agent fulfil the requirements of some other type of ethical theory such as indirect utilitarianism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ZMpggpX8IE
7.2 Flourishing and cooperation (8:53)
Virtues constitute, but do not cause, human flourishing. Flourishing individuals lead meaningful, well-lived lives that an objective observer would judge to be happy. A flourishing human life requires both a good character (virtues) and good material circumstances. Good material circumstances are largely the product of cooperative rather than individual production, as in Adam Smith’s pin factory. People with the virtues of moderation, honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, and courage can finesse difficulties with cooperation such as those illustrated by the Stag Hunt Game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UYpea7QcDFU
7.3 Community membership (10:29)
People learn and exercise virtue in communities. By providing the opportunity for their members to exercise virtue, communities enable people to flourish and lead good lives. At the same time, the exercise of various virtues by community members enables the social cooperation that sustains the community. As members of families and communities, virtuous people acquire obligations to specific others that are not voluntary in the way that contractual obligations are voluntary. These include obligations of loyalty and solidarity to other family and community members, and obligations to the community as a whole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cADvIS1IzhA
7.4 Corporate character (10:24)
Because virtues are traits and dispositions to behavior, and not mental states, we can meaningfully ascribe virtues and vices to business corporations and other organizations. Managers can implement good corporate character through how they govern and organize their business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ttrlE8YXC4Y
7.5 Problems with virtue ethics (12:02)
Ethical reasoning based on virtue ethics must be careful to avoid cultural relativism, cultural conservatism, the maintenance of unhealthy community standards, paternalism, the suppression of autonomous thought, and too great a split between the demands of the multiple communities of which one person may be a member.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ij6HGsYFgYY
Case Study 7:
Gillian and Insider Trading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ofgZ9tTEdA