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Article: The ABC's of business ethics: definitions, philosophies and implementation. (Ethics in the Workplace)
- Article from:
- Industrial Management
- Article date:
- January 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Institute of Industrial Engineers, Inc. (IIE). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What is ethics? Ethics is concerned with moral obligation, responsibility, and social justice. The word ethics comes from the Greek words "ethikos" and "ethos," meaning custom or usage. As employed by Aristotle, the term included the idea of character and disposition. Thus, ethics reflects the character of the individual and more contemporarily perhaps, the character of the business firm, which is a collection of individuals.
There are several ways to define ethics. John Rawls, author of A Theory of Justice, said that ethics is justice. In other words, ethics includes principles that all rational persons would select to govern social behavior if they knew the rules ...