Professional Deontology: Ethics, Morality, and Corporate Impact
Professional Deontology
Deontology: Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. Some moral rules should never be broken.
Consequentialism: Morality is about doing whatever has the best consequences, even breaking some moral rules to achieve the best result. Consequentialists differ on what constitutes the Good: Utilitarians focus on pleasure/happiness, while Pluralists consider the distribution of the Good among people. Deontologists and consequentialists have opposing views.
Examples: In the Trolley Problem, a runaway trolley is about to kill five people. You can divert it to kill only one person. In the Transplant Case, a surgeon can murder one person to harvest organs and save five others. Both cases involve killing one to save five.
Legal Void
A legal void describes a situation where a law, contract, or action has no legal effect from the start, as if it never existed.
Example: The conflict between taxi drivers and ride-sharing services like Cabify and Uber between 2018 and 2019. Taxi drivers and authorities claimed that these services operated without the necessary licenses (VTC), creating an unfair situation.
How is a legal void solved? By creating new laws or adapting existing regulations to new circumstances.
How Law, Morals, and Ethics Affect Corporations
Ethics and morality are often used interchangeably, though some communities (academic, legal, religious) may distinguish them. Both relate to distinguishing between “good and bad” or “right and wrong.” Morality is often seen as personal and normative, while ethics are the standards of “good and bad” within a community or social setting. Personal morality can contradict community ethics. The terms are used differently across fields.
For example:
- Morality often has a Christian connotation due to moral theology in the church.
- Ethics is used in business, medicine, or law (professional).
- Ethics serves as a personal code of conduct, often debated and contentious.
Categories of Demands on Behavior
- Laws: Formal rules for societal behavior, defining what must and must not be done. Enforceable standards.
- Morality: Values, principles, beliefs, customs, and ways of living.
- Ethics: Values, principles, and purpose. Provides a sense of what is good, right, and meaningful.
Professional Deontology
Professional Deontology focuses on duties and obligations. It articulates norms that every professional must observe, considering that a company is a social actor with duties to other actors. It deals with the Good and the Right.
Ethics in Corporate Practice
Every action has consequences. Companies generate both positive and negative effects. We must minimize negative impacts and enhance positive ones.
In corporate management:
- Risks: Potential negative events that have not yet occurred.
- Impact: Consequences that have already occurred, which can be positive or negative.
Risk is a possibility, while impact is a consequence. Corporations act differently for risks and impacts:
- Risks: Prevention methods to avoid potential negative effects.
- Impact: Reactive measures after an event has occurred.
When risks become impacts, the danger increases. Sustainability leads to risk prevention measures.