The ethical practices of Biedronka, the most significant supermarket chain in Poland
Introduction
This report is concerned with the Ethical procedures of Biedronka (“Ladybird” in Polish), the most significant supermarket chain in Poland. The statement carries out a critical evaluation of the business’s current engagement with Corporate Sociable Responsibility (CSR) agenda and identifies key ethical issues for the organisation.
In particular this record looks at the record of worker grievances concerning forced overtime under risk of dismissal, falsifying of information to deny overtime repayments and various cases of employee poor treatment across the supermarket’s chain of retailers.
The Company
In Poland, supermarkets started to appear in the mid 1990s. After decades of Communist guideline these stores represented the Western best with their bright colors and wide selection of products at reasonable prices.
The most significant supermarket chain in Poland is normally Biedronka, located in Ruda Slaska it is just a subsidiary of the Portuguese provider Jerónimo Martins (JMD). Biedronka has more than 1,400 retailers, over 28,000 employees and over 500 personal label items (Jerónimo Martins, 2010).
The Plank of Directors of Jerónimo Martins contains five Executive Customers and six Non-Executive members. Mr. Pedro Manuel De Castro Soares Dos Santos (Chef Executive Officer of the Table of Directors and Director of Food Distribution Operations of Jerónimo Martins SGPS SA since 1995) is accountable for Procedures in Poland (Reuters, 2010).
See Appendix 1 for information on the company’s corporate structure.
Biedronka is regarded as a lower price chain with many very own branded products; it is probably most related to Lidl in the united kingdom.
Corporate Governance Structure
The current Code of Best Practice for WSE Listed Firms, as drawn up by the Warsaw STOCK MARKET Supervisory Board (May 2010), provides the guidelines for good governance for all firms shown on the Warsaw STOCK MARKET (Rancewicz, 2010).
“The Code of Perfect Practice for WSE Listed Firms aims at enhancing transparency of listed companies, improving quality of connection between companies and traders, and strengthening safety of shareholders’ rights, including those not regulated by legislation, while refraining from imposing a burden on outlined companies that may outweigh the benefits caused by market needs”.
There will be three areas that the main concepts of the Code of Ideal Practice deal with:
A – Management Boards
B – Supervisory Board Members
C – Shareholders
These codes advisory just and depend on the self-regulation of companies to follow them. Companies are asked to comply or, in the case of any non-conformance, make clear why they have certainly not applied the code to their governance practices.
The means of providing great governance for a corporate enterprise are the appointment of two specific types of directors of the business: executive (Operations) directors who get excited about the operational and strategic areas of the business and non-executive (Supervisory) directors. The non-executive directors usually do not require themselves in the daily functioning of the business enterprise, there’s is more a role for monitoring the behaviour of the executive control thereby adding a type of safeguard for shareholders and stakeholders passions.
Stakeholders can be defined as” an individual or an organization which either: can be harmed by, or benefits from, the corporation; or whose rights could be violated, or have to be respected, by the corporation”. (Crane and Matten, 2007, p58).
Biedronka provides, through its parent organization Jerónimo Martins, a solid framework of Governance with five Executive People and six Non-Executive customers. Operations for the Polish arm of the company are headed by Mr. Pedro Manuel De Castro Soares Dos Santos (Chef Executive Officer of the Plank of Directors and Director of Meals Distribution Operations). He also sits on the following committees: Financial Concerns Committee, Corporate Responsibility Committee and the Analysis and Nomination Committee (see Appendix 1 for additional details).
The difficulty with this composition is that it’s based after its Portuguese parent firm and that the operational actions of Biedronka itself, within Poland, are very substantially in the hands of native and regional mangers. As the composition for Governance in the mother or father company is strong the potency of its application could be diluted in the performing of its subsidiary enterprise, Biedronka.
Corporate Social Responsibility Agenda
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is usually “the acknowledgement by businesses that they should be accountable not only for their financial performance, but for the impact of their actions on society and/or the surroundings” (CBI, 2010).
While there is definitely legislation that regulates human being resource issues, environmental problems, waste operations, sustainability and health insurance and safety matters you will find a difference between activities that are powered by these legal requirements and others that go beyond this. Companies tend to be taking actions not because they include a legal requirement but because they’re following an ethical insurance policy of behaviour. This is often done at the trouble of the company without seeking any economic reward.
In Biedronka case, as will be discussed later, this includes employee health care programmes, free summer getaways for employees’ households “in greatest need” and Christmas presents for all workers.
This kind of social behaviour by corporations has not been welcome and even considered unethical by some. Milton Friedman (1970) stated social activity was the responsibility of individuals rather than of an individual whose responsibility is with their provider or shareholders. Using company assets for social advantage was, in Friedman’s look at, no unique of stealing from the business and therefore was unethical behaviour itself.
Crane and Matten (2007) argue that companies do have moral tasks and that the ethical job of a corporation is determined by sets of individuals within the company, instead of any single individual functioning on their own. Thus giving the company an identity and therefore a responsibility in its corporate behaviour.
How far a firm acts in its self interest and when a task become purely an work of social good is certainly represented in Archie Carroll’s Four Part Style of Corporate Public Responsibility (Crane and Matten, 2007, p.49).
This model (Fig.1.) describes the pieces of CSR that are between fundamental economic duties and more philanthropic activities.
The base of the pyramid represents the virtually all required activities of the company which includes the necessity to make a profit. In other words a business must act in such a way as to assure the profitability of the business, if this is not done a firm will almost certainly fail.
The next thing up the pyramid is usually complying with legal requirements. All companies must follow the regulations governing company behaviour. There may be difficulties at times, especially with multi-national businesses trading in countries with distinct regulations, nonetheless it is still the duty of the company to make sure it is performing legally in whichever region it really is operating in.
Fig.1. Carroll’s CSR Pyramid
The third step concerns Ethical Responsibilities, this is where CSR issues are raised. Here activities go beyond what’s required into what should be required, it is in which a company calls for an ethical stance and encourages certain areas of behaviour of all its activities guided by an ethical and moral viewpoint.
The final stage of the pyramid deals with philanthropic activities. These are actions that may be seen to promote individual welfare or goodwill. The range from personal contributions or executive time in such areas as contributions to the arts, education, or the community (Carroll, 1991).
Such actions aren’t generally required but often desired and donate to the overall feeling of ‘Corporate Citizenship’.
Biedronka and the CSR Agenda
While possessed by the Portuguese having enterprise, with the Polish shops being under the demand of a Portuguese director, Biedronka retailers are run by localized managers with a certain amount of independence relating to administration and staff management.
However, firms do have certain social responsibilities which ideally has got been pushed further and additional into prominence as a result of Poland’s entry in to the EU and her wish to follow the european countries and abide by EU employment rules.
Biedronka is quite clear about its location on Corporate Community Responsibility (CSR), it promotes five regions of social responsibility for the business:
Trustworthy Employer
Trustworthy Person in Society
Trustworthy Person in Environment
Trustworthy Quality Food Store
Trustworthy Business Partner
(See Appendix 3 for further details)
The company’s activities would definitely appear to follow Carroll’s CSR pyramid unit quite well. The company is making a good profit (see Appendix 2), and it could be expected that they operate within the legal requirements of Poland and also the EU regulations now deciding on Poland as a complete member of the European Community.
The company promotes itself as an ethical organization with regards to treatment and working circumstances of employees, environmental concerns and wider social responsibilities.
The company runs employee health care programmes, plays a part in free summer getaways for employees’ family members “in greatest have to have” and Holiday presents for all employees (see Appendix 3).
Much of what the business does under CSR can be considered to be philanthropic actions and it would appear they have large ethical values and a strong perception of corporate responsibility.
However, there are various question marks about their treatment of employees and suppliers.
Primarily amongst these may be the case of Bozena Lopacka (KARAT Coalition, 2008).
Bozena Lopacka was a manager in one of the Biedronka supermarkets. She sued her company for 35000zÅ‚ (zloty, about £6900) for failing woefully to remunerate her for overtime. In 2004 the courtroom accepted the state and ordered the amount to be paid out to her. JMD after that appealed the ruling. At the moment a non-governmental organisation stepped in – the Helsinki Basis of Human Privileges, which shown its independent thoughts and opinions.
Finally in 2007 Bożena Åopacka was granted 26000zÅ‚ as remuneration for the overtime hours (rather than 35000zÅ‚) because claims related to work relations are a subject to expiration after 3 years.
Several issues were identified in cases like this:
The hours worked were not reported properly.
As a store manager Lopacka was forced by her employer to forge the time sheets so females for whom she was a supervisor would not be paid for overtime.
Female employees acquired to transfer and pull loads exceeding the norms on hand-pulled carts rather than electric ones.
Deliveries to retailers were poorly organised and late, leading to work overload for employees
Since that time over 120 other identical circumstances against Biedronka supermarkets had been taken to the court. Up to now, all of them have been won (Internal Commission of Jurists, 2010).
The situation was so bad that an organisation was produced, the Association of the Harmed by Large Commercial Chains – ‘Biedronka’ (Stowarzyszenie Osób Poszkodowanych Przez Wielkie Scieci Handlowe ‘Biedronka’), which represented employees (and ex – employees) in their legal disputes with the chain (Czarzasty, 2009).
It is seen that the public face of the company has been around conflict with its actual activities at some stores. While on the whole this has been right down to the action of people working at these retailers there has to be association and blame on the directors of the business, particularly Mr. Pedro Soares Dos Santos. However, amidst the 112 people fined by the Status Labour Inspectorate simply six were managers and two regional managers. No top managers within the company were held to become liable by the courts (Internal Commission of Jurists, 2010).
It is clear than in many instances the company failed its fundamental legal requirements and despite its visible CSR stance actually didn’t provide proper employee treatment and working conditions.
While there are legalities that have been identified regarding Biedronka’s treatment of personnel there are
also the ethical issues connected with this.
To establish if the conduct of Biedronka has got been ethically suitable or not it is necessary to apply certain theories to the situation and employ such theories to support the conclusion.
For this report the problem of forced overtime shall be discussed. The personnel at Biedronka’s supermarkets were forced to take overtime (often unpaid) which has a direct affect on the individuals concerned but also a wider effect on families and good friends of the staff members concerned. This demonstrates it is not just a case of worker versus company in these conditions but the influence on all those connected with or who have a pastime in the situation. These stakeholders are “an individual or group which often: is usually harmed by, or advantages from, the corporation; or whose rights can be violated, or have to be respected by the corporation” (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.58). Such stakeholders include employees, suppliers, buyers, competitors, shareholders and employee’s family members, amongst others.
A record by Allard E. Dembe (2008), entitled “Ethical Concerns Relating to the Health Effects of Long Working Hours” investigated ethical considerations involve mandatory or unpaid overtime and the probability of company coercion. The statement stated:
“Considerable research facts has accumulated indicating that there is an elevated likelihood for condition and injury among personnel employed in long-hour schedules and schedules concerning unconventional shift work (e.g., nights and evening shifts). In addition, studies show that fatigue-related errors made by employees employed in these sort of demanding schedules can have major and adverse repercussions for open public safety”.
The Triple Bottom Line
The Triple Bottom Line (3BL) was a expression coined by John Elkington in 1994 and specifically in his 1998 e book Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business.
Elkington states: “In the easiest terms, the TBL agenda focuses companies not simply on the economic benefit that they add, but also on the environmental and social value that they put – or destroy”.
Fig. 2. The Triple Bottom Line
The main theory behind 3BL is certainly that corporations shouldn’t only take into account the monetary factors of business but should incorporate cultural and environmental factors aswell. The ‘bottom line’ identifies the accounting term for the real, real cost to the business enterprise. Elkington argues that a cost benefit can be measured for environmental and public activities a company ought to engage in. 3BL as well involves the advertising of sustainability; that’s meeting the desires of today’s without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own desires (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.22).
While the emphasis of corporations features generally been on the monetary factors the Triple IMPORTANT THING attempts to produce a balance between “people, world and profit” (Elkington, 1994).
Biedronka promote the thoughts behind 3BL however in practice have didn’t implement social value, specifically amongst its staff, as an objective. Social Justice does not only refer to concerns such as the impacts of business activities on indigenous communities in less developed countries and areas (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.27) but anywhere where there will be stakeholders affected by the actions of corporations.
Ethical Issues and Program of Normative Theories
It is worth mentioning below the difference between Morals and Ethics:
“Morality can be involved with the norms, values, and beliefs embedded in interpersonal processes which define best and wrong for an individual or a community”.
“Ethics can be involved with the study of morality and the use of reason to elucidate particular rules and guidelines that determine right and wrong for a given situation. These guidelines and principles are called ethical theories” (Crane and Matten, 2007).
It is seen that ethics is available to interpretation and different persons will have different thoughts on what specifically is right and incorrect, is it reasonable to apply some rules using situations however, not in others? Can a ‘white lie’ be suitable in certain situations where the truth could cause distress?
The following discusses different ethical theories and applies them to the activities of Biedronka.
Utilitarianism
If we apply the moral theory of Utilitarianism that it ought to be “the greatest good for the greatest number of people” (Bradburn, 2001) to the example of the forced overtime discussed earlier then it could be argued that this business decision was morally acceptable. A handful of people (per store) might experience some level of discomfort but they would remain employed and the clients of the supermarket would be able to buy their products with ease as staff would be on the shop floor rather than finished for your day. The business could employ more staff but this would maximize overheads and affect revenue.
The following desk identifies several stakeholders and the price ( or pain) and gain (or pleasure) of the activities to those involved:
Stakeholder
Cost
Benefit
Employer
Bad publicity from legal action. Loss or popularity. Financial expense of legal action. High staff turnover.
Cost savings, no need to employ more staff.
Employee
Poor morale. Adverse effects of working extended hours.
Retain job in the face of high unemployment.
Customer
Poor provider through unhappy employees. Not wanting to be associated with a firm following such practices.
Long opening hours.
Supplier
Concerns about being connected with a business following such practices.
Continued profits of firm reduce threat of losing supply contracts
Employee Family
Family life disrupted due to long working hours.
Continued income.
Employees have mentioned that the neighborhood managers seem to take pleasure in creating an atmosphere of intimidation which leads to unhappy workers and a high turnover of personnel. Because Polish unemployment is high there will always be replacements but a minimal turnover of staff is good for business as it removes the time needed to find and train latest employees. Accordingly one might question the action of the business which provoke such a negative effect with comparatively little benefits.
If we look at the basic theory of Utilitarianism that the few need to make sacrifices for the countless then there are probably far more customers satisfied with continuing cheap products than those concerned about employee issues.
Egoism
From an egoism point of view one can understand this style of management tradition. The egoist argues that the true test of a guy isn’t what he has done for others but instead what he has manufactured from himself (Nielsen, 1959) The managers’ primary concern when making decisions will be company profits and placing the company in a much better position than before, regardless of the workers’ wellbeing. The directors of the company wish their supermarket chain to become the very best supermarket in Poland. Accordingly, it is acceptable to do what needs to be done to maintain an advantage over competitors. However, from the employees’ viewpoint and taking the same egoism stance, in the short-term it might be essential to “follow orders” to get their wage but their long run needs should be to find alternative occupation and seek legal action through the courts if they feel the need. The actual fact that the turnover of personnel in Biedronka is significantly high because of the indegent working conditions seems to have been ignored by operations. They continue to pressurise personnel to work longer and longer hours with the stick of unemployment being waved in their faces frequently. Whether that is in the long-term interests of the business is certainly questionable and if the workers were more highly skilled one would say that it is wii business decision to treat them in this way, but as the staff aren’t highly skilled and there are always a sufficient number of candidates ready to take their locations (at least temporarily) the other can appreciate the management’s policy of earning the staff work hard for longer.
Ethics of Duty
Immanuel Kant in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) declared three maxims that should be to determine the ethical correctness of a situation. For the actions to be considered ethically correct they must pass all three maxims:
Consistency
“Act only according to that maxim where you can simultaneously will that it will become a universal law”.
It can be unlikely that Biedronka would consider that forced overtime as a ‘universal law, applied to everyone’ will be acceptable. This will not discount agreed overtime with pay out and even time off in lieu with conceivably an agreed threshold for the maximum of time overtime contractually required, over which more hours should be on a voluntary basis.
Human Dignity
“Act to ensure that you deal with humanity, whether in your own person or for the reason that of another, often as an end and never as a means only”.
It is distinct that the Biedronka management are indeed which consists of employees as a way to an end plus they are not being treated equally so concerning benefit all.
Universality
“Act as though the maxim of your action were by your can to become universal law of character”.
This maxim asks if you want to have your activities universally known, the brand new York Times check (Trevino and Nelson, 2007). In other expression would you enjoy a your activities appearing on the front page of the New York Circumstances (Fakt, Poland’s greatest selling newspaper, in this instance)? Clearly Biedronka wouldn’t normally, and indeed did not, like the publicity from the courtroom cases in Poland and it is assumed that their treatment of staff on these situations is something they would not desire to occur again or be made public.
Overall is would seem that Biedronka fails all checks, let alone pass all three. However, it is difficult to use Kant’s theories to real life scenarios and inevitably any conclusion is a subjective a person with an all natural bias on the side of the person judging the activities.
The Rights Theory (Herbal Law)
The Ethics of Privileges maintain that everyone features certain natural rights that they are entitled to (Locke, 1689). Those rights cover things such as for example justice, liberty, the right to life, etc. Its writer, John Locke, believed that human aspect was characterised by tolerance and motive. However, Locke also explained that humans had a right to self interest – they have the right to life and liberty – accordingly shouldn’t a supervisor who wishes to advance in the company can do whatever it takes to be noticed by his superiors so as to enhance his job? And if what should be done requires hurting a few people on the way then let it be done. But I would highly argue that Locke would consider Biedronka’s plans to not in favor of his notion of most people’s natural rights and if the goal of this theory is usually fairness and there is such a wide division between the winners (management) and the losers (the employees) then the only way to resolve this situation can only be to get to narrow the division between the two parties.
With the enforced overtime, this ethical theory shows that it is against someone’s rights to be required to involuntarily work extended hours. Such an action ought to be on a voluntary basis and should involve repayment for extra hours worked. There should certainly end up being no punishment for refusing unreasonable overtime job. Therefore, this policy will be considered unethical.
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics looks totally at the type of the person making a decision rather than the decision itself (Mellahi and Solid wood, 2003). Would a person
of virtue come to the same decision? To apply this to Biedronka, we’d need to look at their complete philosophy instead of these isolated incidents. On their website, they clearly declare that they place heavy emphasis on ethical behaviour.
To a visitor without knowledge of the supermarket chain’s reputation, they seem to be a pioneer regarding ethics running a business but there is regular proof in the courts (Internal Commission of Jurists, 2010), from persons and in the mass media that the company has significant failures in applying its ethical stance. You can argue these decisions are made on the basis of growing the business and opening more retailers to be able to provide increased employment not only in its stores but also for its suppliers and for bettering customer choice; but surely there must be a limit on how far a organization can go in terms of its decisions. If the paramount query when considering a company’s ethical standpoint is certainly: “What would a reasonable, genuine person do in this example?” then I assume that Biedronka and its own senior and junior management failed to ask themselves this problem because of their wish research proposal apa for the company to improve financially and also have entirely focused on revenue to the detriment of their employees.
Feminist Ethics
Crane and Matten (2007) indicated that feminist theory emphasises harmony and empathy with one’s fellow individual; particularly with those that might be susceptible to the decisions that people produce. In Poland, where unemployment is large and years of Communism resulted in great hardship, the customs is different to the united states and the UK therefore it could be argued that Poles include a different degree of empathy – arguably they happen to be two decades behind Western Europe with regards to law and organization (Lewicka-Strzalecka, 2006).
To the managers virtually all employees have an excellent job and so are paid reasonably well, but I would state that the argument against this is much stronger – forcing staff to work unpaid overtime (or even to not be compensated more than enough for this) was in immediate conflict with the workers emotions and would inevitably bring about disenchantment and poor morale, not forgetting fatigue. The reason behind this forced overtime would appear to be mostly fiscal and did not seek to market harmonious and healthy relationship between the workforce.
Discourse Ethics
Discourse ethics needs all functions in a conflict to reflect on the situation and arrive to a rational settlement that’s suitable for all get-togethers. If all functions were to include the clients of the supermarket, who’ve an indirect curiosity in this example then there would be some difficulty in reaching a good decision. However, if by all get-togethers we were to imply management and employees after that this becomes more feasible. Having less trade unions within the Polish supermarket program would be an obstacle and obviously it could be difficult to include all workers in the meeting but discourse theory does appear the most sensible option to resolve this situation; although the management during the past has shown reluctance to hear employees’ needs. Addititionally there is the risk that with the better and articulate administration in the room with a group of less effective and inarticulate workers in fear of their jobs there exists a good likelihood that any decisions produced will still be heavily in favour of those that run the organisation
Postmodern Ethics
Postmodern theory argues that those theories mentioned above are outdated in a world of complex human people and businesses that focus on increasingly more specific needs (Crane and Matten, 2007). There can’t be one theory that suits essay apa format for all eventualities and asks persons to question practices such as for example those mentioned here also to go with their feelings and their gut emotions in these circumstances. My gut feeling in cases like this is in favour of the personnel at the supermarket but it would be preferable to interview all those actors involved and spend some time there- indeed the only real way to could come to a conclusion is always to spend time employed in the supermarket, both as a manager and a cashier. This option is unlikely to be open to anyone proposing such a study and so a while spent as a person watching how staff acts in the supermarket might help a lot more than being sat within an office trying to come to a conclusion. My preliminary instinct is that I’d part with the supermarket personnel, but as it will be unlikely in order to see the management doing his thing without arousing suspicion such a decision could be considered to be just a little biased. It’s a dilemma that should likewise have been raised by the individual shop managers – why didn’t they ask themselves why they were so slavishly following the senior management instead of producing their conclusions on that which was morally proper? With the forced overtime, I suspect the insurance policy would not have been implemented if the postmodern theory was used.
Conclusion
Poland was for many years under the rule of a communist regime and staff didn’t have the legal coverage or the accepted rights to working conditions and benefits observed in the west.
It is probable that it’ll still take time and a significant shift in attitudes for the country to totally adopt a western check out of how exactly to treat its personnel and for this frame of mind to be accepted at all degrees of society.
As in the west and elsewhere there are various ethical questions regarding the rights of workers that can be answered in many different ways: an egoist may ask why should one individual owe any sort of duty to another? But even here there are differences of judgment with Psychological (descriptive) egoism, Ethical egoism and Rational egoism all providing a different location on egoism itself (Shaver, 2002).
However, nearly all normative theories would seem to allow us to come to approximately the same conclusions, that is that activities taken by the many managers of these supermarkets had been unethical and almost all of people would consider that the decisions they built lacked empathy with their fellow humans.
PART B
A Essential Appraisal of Traditional Ethical Theories
Traditional ethical theories possess strong influence on our knowledge of the relevance of business ethics but are often criticised for their limitation in business practices and lack of attention to human emotions.
Crane and Matten (2007) separate traditional ethical theories into two types:
Consequentialist – if the results of a situation is that that which is required then the method can be ethically sound. If the results is one that had not been desired then your method is ethically wrong. Egoism and Utilitarianism happen to be examples of consequentialist theories.
Non-consequentialist – based upon the technique used and the fundamental ideas of the actor. In these cases it is you see, the ethical value of the method used rather than using the end result (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.90). Ethics of Duty and Privileges Theory are types of non-consequentialist theories.
Consequentialist theories have a tendency to dismiss the damaging results on people and the surroundings if the required end result is achieved. The difficulty with this end justifies the means procedure is that in many cases persons are harmed and the surroundings is damaged. Where a big proportion of individuals would seem to benefit from a specific action it must be determined the acceptable amount of struggling that any minority would be prepared to take. The difficulty is set the unacceptable degree of suffering which actually the needs of the numerous cannot justify.
Non-consequentialist theories tend to be focused on the moral philosophy behind an actions and are often difficult to use to real life situations. However, in a far more enlightened age, certainly a more informed one, it really is hoped that, possibly in the high-powered environment of corporate business, the power of Rights Theories, for instance, would be better the more self-interest based kinds of Egoism and Utilitarianism.
An Evaluation of Contemporary Developments in Ethical Theories
Because of the inherent complications of the traditional theories Modern day Ethical Theories take out themselves from the more philosophical and guideline based theories. Fashionable Ethical Theories involve Virtue ethics, Feminist ethics, Discourse ethics and Postmodern ethics.
Virtue ethics can be involved with the decision maker themselves and their intellectual and moral virtues (Nielson, 2006). The emphasis is on the qualities of the decision maker such as wisdom, honesty, courage loyalty, endurance, etc. (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.110). The underlying principle is that a virtuous person would be, by inclination, more likely to create ethical decisions generally and only in certain cases.
Even if that was the case, it really is still difficult to use virtue ethics in modern society because one rule does not fit everybody and one person’s “virtues” could be different to someone else’s.
Feminist ethics are based mostly more on public behaviour and cooperation between groups where differences of opinion could be settled by reasonable compromises. Maintaining a wholesome relationship between teams is more important than what may be thought to be maintaining the rights of the average person. The thinking here’s that rights are often a perceived value that is different in a single country than another, for instance. Crane and Matten (2007) give an example of child labour being wrong for feminine ethics certainly not since it violated perceived (western) guidelines but due to the likely distress and suffering of the kids (Crane and Matten, 2007. p.113).
Discourse ethics attempt to fix ethical issues by sensible, rational discussion of all parties. While based after providing a practical alternative to wide ranging problems there is alone the practical problem of all involved parties to be able to communicate with one another.
Postmodern ethics act like virtue ethics for the reason that it talks about view of the persons particular sense of what’s right and incorrect. It deliberately eliminates itself from the rules of other theories which tell an individual what is right or wrong rather than what are actually a person’s own beliefs. It relies on a person’s experience and their ‘gut feeling’ on what is right and what’s wrong. While this can be a theories’ strength it is also a weakness as it depends upon a person’s experience and therefore any insufficient experience, specifically in a multicultural environment, may weaken that person’s ability to make an informed judgement.
An Opinion on the worthiness and Usage of Descriptive Ethical Theories
Descriptive ethics may be the study of what persons believe is morally appropriate. Basically, what do they think is right and how do they come compared to that conclusion? Different people have diverse beliefs and understanding, frequently based on specific things like upbringing, ethnic and cultural backdrop, religion and personal experience. Studying different morals and specifications of groups and societies helps to understand such differences and by understanding contributes to better ways of solving ethical problems between such groups.
Conclusion
While it is beneficial to have specific theories that could be put on particular problems each of them appear to have their very own strengths and weaknesses, and failings.
Using one particular theory to resolve a predicament can prove unsatisfactory. Utilizing a pluralistic methodology (Crane and Matten, 2007) where different facets of the various theories are used to provide a balanced outcome would appear to be the best approach.
