HUM1021 Ethics and Values

B.Tech

Sivakumar, R
SMBS, VIT Chennai
Significance of the course
 To enable the students to develop a perception of
right and wrong
 Develop self-awareness
 To practice ethics in every sphere of future life
 Making the right decisions as a:
 Student
 member of the society
 professional
Course Content
Evaluation Plan

Item Marks (%)

CAT 1 15
CAT 2 15
Digital assignments 30
Project 100
FAT 40
Project (J Component)
 Teams of 4-5 members
 Choose innovative topics demonstrating real-life
applications of concepts taught
 Case studies
 Reporting of unethical issues with proof -
whistle blowing
 Short-film making
 Project topic has to be approved by the teacher
Project (J Component)
 Each student should work a minimum of 4
hrs/week on the project
 A log of activities should be maintained and
shared with the teacher once in a fortnight
 Three reviews will be conducted to assess the
progress
 The progress presented should reflect the
activities in the log sheet
 Marks distribution in reviews will be in the ratio
20:30:50 in reviews 1, 2 and 3 respectively
Student Learning Outcomes
 Learning to appreciate the significance of ethical
behavior
 Understanding the ill effects of bad habits
 Learning to take ethically right decisions
 Understanding of major values practiced in our society
 Understanding the preamble of our constitution
 Learning to understand contemporary social issues
 Learning to understand professional behavior
 Appreciate the need for continuous learning
 An understanding of responsibilities
 Lectures: 1-2

Module-1
Personal Ethics

Ethics and Values: meaning and significance- Understanding

Self- Steps in Ethical Decision Making. Ethical issues faced by
student community.
Ethics and Values: Meaning
and Significance
ETHICS and VALUES are not fancy
words to be thought of
carelessly, or worse, not thought
of at all!
Introduction
 Stories of great persons like Mahatma Gandhi,
Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda, Sarojini Naidu,
Nelson Mandela and stores from great epics teach us
several good qualities like
 truthfulness
 honesty
 loyalty
 gratitude
 integrity
 courage
 discipline
 spirituality and their importance
Introduction
 Mahabharatham, Ramayanam inspire persons
and teach them “morals” and “values”
 Stories of Jansi Rani, Kannagai, Rani Mangammal
influence the young minds and inspire them in
many ways
 Bhagavat Gita, Bible, Quran and Thirukkural teach
the people “Values”
 Value based stories, not only make us bright and
cheerful but also guide us properly during the
time of hardships
Introduction
 The way in which one is brought up in early
days, behavior of people in and around,
one’s own experiences influence the
psychology of a person
 These have got an impact on morals, values
and ethics of a person
 Engineers as professionals should follow
morals, values and ethics taught by great
persons when they work for the welfare of
society
Introduction
 Mahatma Gandhi insists importance of values and ethics
when he talks about the social issues
 Wealth without work
 Pleasure without conscience
 Knowledge without character
 Commerce (business) without morality (ethics)
 Science without sacrifice
 Religion without sacrifice
 Politics without principles
 All these social issues can help society, only if ethics is
followed
Everyday Ethics: Activity-1
Personal Values
Assuming that you enter into a book store
to buy few books for this semester. You
pay for all the books and you leave the
shop. However, as you are about to enter
into the bus, you checked the change the
shopkeeper gave you and you realize you
have been given Rupees 100 more than
you are entitled to. What will you do?
Everyday Ethics: Activity-2

Personal Values
You made a call from a public phone
booth. When you put down the receiver,
quarters poured out of the coin return.
What will you do?
Everyday Ethics: Activity-3
Personal Values
What do I do with a student who needs
to get at least C grade in my class because
he would otherwise lose his scholarship
but doesn’t deserve the grade?
Everyday Ethics: Activity-4
Personal Values
Do I keep strictly to my absence policy
when my student has been really sick?
Everyday Ethics: Activity-5
Personal Values
In a class room, where everyone is
required to contribute, how do I treat a
student who is silent because he is afraid
to speak up in public?
Everyday Ethics
There are two dogs inside me. One of the
dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is
good.
The mean dog fights the good dog all the
time … which dog usually wins …

The one I feed the most

-words of a Native American Tribal leader, retold by Harold Kushner
Why to study Ethics and Values?

Why is it much harder to do

right rather than wrong?

Because, it is the right

thing to do!
Why to study Ethics and Values?
Life is full of little choices

“What is popular is not always right;

what is right is not always
popular”

We don’t make the right choices

or do the right thing
Why to study Ethics and Values?
Mistakes are a normal part of living and
to be expected

All people make mistakes; it’s part of

living

When we make a mistake, we gain more

self-awareness and hopefully, learn a
life’s lesson
Why to study Ethics and Values?

We can learn by our mistakes

What is more important, we can avoid

some mistakes if we take the time to
identify our personal values and
ethics
Ethics - Activity
Who is the most ethical person you
know?
Why did you think of this person?
What are the characteristics you
associate with this person?
Need for Ethics
 Each of us make dozens of moral choices
daily:
 Go to institute or to work or play sick
 Use someone else’s work as our own or
study and do our best
 Tell the truth or tell a lie
 Obey the speed limit or ignore it
 Pet the cat or kick it
Need for Ethics
 Many people reason that we don’t need ethics
because of our system of laws, when consistently
enforced, provide sufficient protection of our rights
 In order to assess this idea we must understand
who makes laws and how they make them
 Who makes them: local, state, and national
legislators
 How they are made is somewhat more difficult.
Legislators must get together to talk about a
particular behavior and then vote on whether they
want to criminalize it
Need for Ethics
 On what basis do they conclude that one act deserves
to be classified criminal and another one doesn’t?
 What kinds of reasons do they offer to support their
views?
 How can they be sure those reasons are good ones?
 The fact that 2 or 10 or 500 legislators expressed that
personal view would not be sufficient reason to
conclude that a law should be passed preventing other
people
 The proper focus for lawmakers is not on their
subjective preferences but on the nature of the actions
in question
Need for Ethics
 Why do we need ethics if we have laws?
 Because law is not possible without
ethics
 The only way for a law to be enacted or
repealed is for one or more people to
make a decision about right and wrong
 Often laws must be revised
 Ethics is a guide for living honorably
Definitions of Ethics
 Ethics is derived from the Greek word
‘ethos’ which means a person’s
fundamental orientation toward life
(Customs or Habits)
 Ethics is also often called moral philosophy
 The word moral is from the Latin mores
which also means customs or habits
 Thus, ethics means the science of customs
or habits of society
Definitions of Ethics
 Ethics can also mean ‘the science of rightness and
wrongness of character and conduct’
 Ethics is the study of what is right or good in human
conduct or character
 Ethics is also the ‘science of the highest good.’ It is
the science of morality
 It is the science of the supreme ideal of human life

Standards of conduct that indicate

how one should behave based on
moral duties and virtues arising from
principles about right and wrong
Definitions of Ethics
 Establish principles guiding behavior
 Are not law -- they are created and followed
voluntarily

Ethics tend to be codified into a formal system

or set of rules which are explicitly adopted by a
group of people.
Example:
Medical Ethics
Business Ethics
Definitions of Ethics
 In the philosophical sense, ethics is a two-
sided discipline
 Normative ethics – answers specific moral
questions, determining what is reasonable
and therefore what people should believe
 The other side of philosophical ethics is;
Methaethics – it examines ethical systems
to appraise their logical foundations and
internal consistency
Definitions of Ethics
Objectives of Ethics
 Studies human behavior and makes evaluative
assessment about them as moral or immoral
 Establishes moral standards and norms of
behavior
 Makes judgment upon human behavior based on
these standards and norms
 Prescribes moral behavior and makes
recommendations about how to or how not to
behave
 Expresses an opinion or attitude about human
conduct in general
Forms of Ethics
 Descriptive ethics (what morals people
follow?)
 Metaethics (what is good? etc)
 Normative ethics (what should we do?)
 Applied ethics (how do we apply ethics
to work and lives?)
Forms of Ethics
Descriptive Ethics:
 It is closely related to anthropology, sociology,
and psychology and leans heavily on them
 It consists of studying and describing the morality
of a people, culture, or society
 It compares and contrasts different moral
systems, codes, practices, beliefs, principles, and
values
 Questions such as “what morals people follow?”
Forms of Ethics
Metaethics:
 It investigates where our ethical principled come
from, and what they mean
 That attempts to discover the origin or cause of
right and wrong
 It discuss about the theoretical meaning and
reference of moral propositions and how their
truth values may be determined
 Questions such as “What is goodness?”
Forms of Ethics
Normative Ethics:
 It is about the practical means of
determining a moral course of action
 This may involve articulating the good habits
that we should acquire, the duties that we
should follow
 Question as “what should one do?”
Forms of Ethics
Normative Ethics:

Whether we watch TV at a
friend’s house or at our own is
not a moral issue. But whether
we watch TV at a friend’s house
without his or her knowledge
and approval is a moral issue
Forms of Ethics
Normative Ethics:

Filling out an application for a job

is a morally neutral act. But
deciding whether to tell the
truth on the application is a
moral decision
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics:
 Addressing Ethical Dilemmas
and Making Decisions in real
life contexts
 Applied ethics require a
decision to be made in a
contentious (controversial/
debatable) context
 Requires contexts to be
realistic
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics:
 It involves examining
specific controversial issues,
such as abortion,
infanticide, animal rights,
environmental concerns,
homosexuality, capital
punishment, or nuclear war.
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics
The Pinto Fire Controversy (1970’s)
 A new design would decrease the possibility of the Ford
Pinto exploding. (Ford new about this design fault)
 The company chose not to implement the design, which
would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done
an analysis showing that the new design would result in
180 less deaths
 The company defended itself on the grounds that it
used the accepted risk/benefit analysis to determine if
the monetary costs of making the change were greater
than the societal benefit.
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics - Dilemma:
The Pinto Fire Controversy (1970’s)
 Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have
been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag
put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus
Ford felt justified not implementing the design change.
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics - Dilemma:
Your best friend has just told you that he is
cheating on his girl friend. Both he and his
friend have been friends of yours since high
school. You are angry at your best friend for
what he is doing and want to tell his girl
friend but at the same time you promised
him you wouldn’t. Would you tell her?
Why? Why not?
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics - Dilemma:

You have been given Rs 5,00,000 to

donate to a starving family with
four children with the condition
that you have to donate 50% of the
money to someone else who is
going to buy drugs with your
donation. Would you still donate?
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics - Dilemma:

Ethical dilemmas can be messy and

confusing
Source, Dunk-West, (2013:103), How to be a social worker.
Forms of Ethics
Applied Ethics – Breaking down the Ethical Dilemmas:

Asking pertinent questions can help to unravel

an ethical dilemma
Source, Dunk-West, (2013:103), How to be a social worker.
Forms of Ethics
Processing an Ethical Dilemma:

Source, Dunk-West, (2013:103), How to be a social worker.

Ethical origins
 Societal Ethics: standards that
members of society use when dealing
with each other
 Professional Ethics: values and
standards used by groups of managers
in the workplace
 Individual Ethics: values of an
individual resulting from their family &
upbringing
Ethical Approaches (or Principles)
Ethical Approaches (or Principles)
Principle Based Utilitarian
“TheCategorical “The Most use”
Imperative”
Ethical Approaches (or Principles)
Principle based (Kantian)
 Duty-based ethics
 Duty-based ethics are concerned with
what people do, not with the
consequences of their actions
 Do the right thing: Do it because it's the
right thing to do
 Don't do wrong things: Avoid them
because they are wrong
Ethical Approaches (or Principles)
Principle based (Kantian)
 Under this form of ethics you can't
justify an action by showing that it
produced good consequences, which
is why it's sometimes called 'non-
Consequentialist'.
Ethical Approaches (or Principles)
Utilitarian (Teleological)
 Consequentialist theory: the ends justify the means
 Humans have 2 motivations
 Humans seek happiness
 Humans avoid pain
 Therefore, we should maximise happiness and
minimise pain
International Ethics

 Making ethical decisions is even more

difficult in international business due
to different value systems and
practices
 Example: Different attitudes toward
bribery

Ethical behavior is a competitive

advantage because it builds trust
Practical Ethics
 Engineering ethics
 Ethics of science
 Bioethics
 Medical ethics
 Environmental ethics
 Public ethics
 Business ethics
 Media ethics
 Political ethics
Common unethical acts
 Lying and withholding needed information
 Abusive or intimidating behavior
 Misreporting time worked
 Discrimination and sexual harassment
 Stealing
 Breaking environmental and safety laws
 Falsifying records
 Drug or alcohol abuse
 Giving or accepting bribes
Unethical acts – Red flag
 If you hear someone say any of these, you can expect
something unethical is about to happen!
“Well, maybe just this once”
“No one will ever know”
“It doesn’t matter how it gets done as long as
it gets done”
“It sounds too good to be true”
“Everyone does it”
“Don’t worry, it’s part of the culture”
“Shred that document”
Unethical acts – Red flag
 If you hear someone say any of these, you can expect
something unethical is about to happen!
“We can hide it”
“No one will get hurt”
“What’s in it for me?”
“There are already enough competitors in
this market”
“This will destroy the competition”
“We didn’t have this conversation”
“I don’t want to know”
Tracing the source of unethical behavior
 Peer pressure
 Education
 Role models
 Cultural influences
 Social pressures
 Law
 Media
 Worldly experience
Tracing the source of unethical behavior
Ethics based on Individual
 Individuals:
Have equal political rights
Deserve to be treated fairly
Have the right to live as they want, as long as they
do not harm the rights of others
 This includes the right to live badly
 A good society is one that treats individuals fairly and
protects their rights. This requires:
Efficient, non-corrupt government and business
A clean, non-toxic environment
Ethics based on Relationships, family and
community
 Relationships, Families, and Communities require
Loyalty
Honor
Friendship
Humility
Self-sacrifice
A clean, non-toxic environment
 A good individual has the qualities that promote
stable, long-lasting relationships, families, and
communities
Why misconduct is not reported?
 Belief that nothing will be done
 Fear of retaliation
 Fear of being viewed as a
troublemaker
Frame work for identifying and resolving
ethical issues
1. Why is this bothering me? 4. What is the ethical concern?
– Am I afraid to do what I know is – Legal obligation?
right? – Honesty, fairness, promise-keeping,
2. Who else matters? avoiding harm?
– Implications for customers, 5. Whom can give me advice?
peers shareholders? – Supervisor, peers, HR, legal, ethics
– How does the problem appear hot line?
from the other side?
3. Is it my responsibility? 6. Am I being true to myself?
– Consistency with my values and
– What will happen if I do/ don’t personal commitments? With
act?
company values?
– Can I share my decision with family,
colleagues, customers?
– Can I see my decision on the front
page of the newspaper?

(source: Dunn & Bradstreet)

Ethical tips for organizations
 Develop a code of ethics
 Communicate code and bake it into
culture top-down
 Treat ethics as a process
 Create open lines of communication
 Set good examples
 Educate employees
Ethical tips for individuals
 Establish personal values
 Be aware of ethical events
 Develop critical thinking techniques
 Be reflective
 Make it a priority every day