Corruption Philosophy and Ethics

Brian Bentley
Mar 22, 2016
7 min read

By Brian Lynn Bentley

Colorado technical University

Kant’s categorical imperative is according to American heritage dictionary (2011) it is an ethical or moral system designed by Immanuel Kant it’s an unconditional moral law that applies that us as rational human beings will do the right thing regardless of our own personal motivations or desires. Collins dictionary(2014) goes further and describes it as without conditions the moral idea that one’s own actions should match certain universal laws or maxims that according to persons and themselves it is the duty of all of us to pursue the moral maxims because these ideas are so noble they have to be outside ourselves and not in personal pursuit of other ends. In totality it’s a theory of universal law.

Ethical and moral relativity

A view that the morality is relative to the society it exists in and criticism and evaluation are not important factors.(ologie and isms ,2008). According to American heritage dictionary it is the belief that there is nothing objective about the definition of right and wrong and depends on a particular view of an individual culture and time in history like you cannot use modern moral views on the instructional of slavery or you cannot use westernized views on the morals of ISIS. What is right for you may not be right for me. (allaboutphilosphy). But still there are somethings that are universal rights and wrongs regardless of relative morality.

utilitarianism is the philosophical view that the value of something or an action is determined by how useful it is an action that benefits the most people for a greater good and distributes the burden across society,(American Heritage) the greatest good for the most people maximizing the most useful benefit from all with in the society(Collins) and according to random house it’s a doctrine of making the most people happy.

Corporate social responsibility defines as corporate citizenship based on ethical and environmental concerns of community in which the company is a part of which can be anything from funding a local school swimming pool or spending time on environmental causes. (Corporate Social Responsibility Definition | Investopedia. n.d.).

Social Contract Theory

Social contract theory is an implicit agreement among members of an organized agency or between the government and the government that defines the limits and duty of each,(American Herritage.2011)An agreement entered into by free individuals that results in rules for states or a formed or organized society with the prime directive being protection and a balance of personal liberties for security. (Collins English Dictionary,2014)

Identify moral and ethical case studies in current events solve ethical dilemmas

Donating to third world countries no matter how noble the cause or charity is when we donate to some third world country with dictator or warlords they have to work within the system they are in such as bribery or things they would not of normally even faith based charities, it’s all Noble to eradicate poverty but in some cases its difficult or impossible to build an infrastructure or participate in a society that needs help when you have to deal with corrupt government officials corrupt individuals or random mad max want to be keeping the money food and clothing from getting to the people who need it. For example the British government donates about 56 percent of its national income on foreign aid. and American even higher numbers and if you include the faith based and secular charities in both of these nations we been under the impression that spending money fixes problem when the real problem is how to utilize that money to be the most effective, charities have made some people rich as they steal or black mail people out of food and sell it back to them at inflated prices. We all been spending tons of money since the 1950s on these countries and war torn areas every little bit helps but it’s just little bit if simply donating money would bring people out of poverty and out of totalitarian regimes we would have neither. (Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. 2014).Millions of people in the African content have been brought out of poverty with advances in technology and also with development and industry. So giving the individuals we want to help out of poverty the best way to do it is to educate and develop programs that help do these things though these things will cost but doctor’s engineers and teachers as well as many others donate their time and effort for free to these same exact things. According to global policy research has found that the weakening financial is due to a combination of huge and external debts corruptions and the effects of the rules imposed by the IMF which creates the need of Non-governmental organized charities even in "capitalistic or developed African countries" and some of the international laws demanding socialized forms of government such as healthcare which some of these countries cannot afford even if they want to have them so in order to negate this massive amount of NGOS non-government originations have filled the void of social services. Africa has also had additional problems such As falling or declining negative rates in production and exports. Both the socialist states and capitalists states of Africa are not doing better than each other. The lack go government funding as well as government corruption has increased the need for NGOS. This seems to be the best alternatives to help these nations develop (Makoba, J. W. 2012). According to givingwhatwecan.org one way to reduce the danger of corruption is to donate to programs that concentrate on charities that don’t concentrate on money but teaching skills, education or small work projects such as building some form of infrastructure.(givingwhatwecan.org)

Recognize business owner’s personal point of view using actual case studies

Since the collapse of colonialism and advocacy of independency of African nations for over four decades the prevailing belief that only the state should dictate economic policies of a nation with the help of the World Bank and the International monetary fund would direct this arrangement. However over the years so many loopholes have been created to allow for unethical practices in some of these nations that of course over the years would lead to a reverse in the progress the African nations have made as well as the stagnation of the economy and totalitarian governments all contributed to the growth of corruptions. This resulted with too much power and wealth in the hands of no all government officials but a select few.( Christine W. Gichure, PhD). One of the ways they are addressing solving these issues is a code of ethics based on several articles from the commonwealth association for corporate governance and principles of corporate governance and several others. Hoping that these guidelines will eventually these rules will evolve into other parts of the markets, such as business , private sector and stock markets. The code makes a point to the good intent of the corporate governance and is relying on cardinal and ethical values. As well as moral obligation and corporate social responsibility and well as hopefully relying on social contract theory without the hard hand or manipulation of government hoping it will eventually evolve itself into standard practices. As well as covering special protections for minorities and human rights. The codes also address health and safety is very rigorously stressed. New developments have come into the excitants such as African Capital Markets Forum which launched an anti-corruption within the private sector and government supply side of corruption. This is so important they are now teaching these ethics in universities. These practices have to be enforced and reinforced mentally and in practice to have any effect.

Business insiders give advice on how to navigate the corruption of local communities at a round table.

The CEO of MiX Telematics Steven Sutherland directs us to the concern of local partners his advice in dealing with the temptations to getting things done is pay attention to their conduct so you do not end up in jail, to not right it off do not say something and not act on it. However it may be easier said than done thanks to corruption on all levels of society you could be arrested for making a politicians sister in law mad sometimes it’s just the way things are done or you will get nothing done sometimes it’s just expected. Orange Business Services Marc McCullum has suggestions in his b persona business example they just refuse to pay the "facilitation fees" by having partners and local employees on the ground and only using partners for customer support. Further advice from these business people doing business in these countries is keep your nose clean and investigate every one such as partners thoroughly. Réan Van Niekerk, MD of Metacom, puts forth advice that using business agreements to let everyone know what we expect and set rules for conduct. Stefano Mattiello of Emerging Africa at Cisco suggests that the corrupt part is usually at the edges of the business transactions and good trustworthy partners will have very little interests in ruining that.(Sanchez, D. (2015)

References

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