Business Ethics Chapter 5 Question & Answer

Ownership is not a unitary right. Instead, it involves a bundle of rights and liabilities in either tangible or intangible things. Different components of the bundle may belong to different persons, as in the separation of management and stockholding in business corporations.

Contractual rights are specific rights that are created by two interrelated promises: an offer and an acceptance. Most business transactions involve contracts, and contracts involve the ethical duties of promise keeping.

The harm principle, which is a general obligation not to harm others, puts limits on the extent of people’s negative rights.

A positive right imposes a duty on others to provide aid, while a negative right imposes a duty on others not to interfere.

Someone’s moral right always correlates with a duty owed to him by either some specific person, or by everyone in general.

Kant thought that all rational agents have a duty not to perform an action if the universal moral principle that everyone may perform the action is self-defeating. For example, we have a duty not to break promises because if it were ethically permissible for everyone to break promises, then the whole activity of promising would be undermined and would cease to exist.

Good ethical motivations include applying moral principles, fulfilling ethical duties, respecting moral rights, and treating others fairly.

The ethical assessment of a business decision requires examining the motivations of the decision-makers as well as the consequences of the decision and the character of the decision-maker. Someone can make a decision with good consequences for bad reasons, or a decision with bad consequences for good reasons.