Personal Ethics and Core Values Essay

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ethics is and I will link this to my own belief system. According to Baird (2012), the study of ethics has the objective to make people reflect on two particular topics of interest: the individual and the community, namely what kind of people we want to be and what kind of community we want to live in. This is why, as Baird pointed out, the discussion about ethics, business ethics included, should start from a discussion about our core value.

I would like to briefly refer to these, in connection to the course and as these values apply to the course and to this discussion. My belief system is based on three main pillars and the first pillar is, I believe, the most important for the discussion at hand. It refers to not lying. I believe that lying is the worst thing that could happen for an individual, both in relationship with himself and in relation to the community and to the other members of community. This is not only a belief related to reputation, but a core value and belief related to deontology.

For me, lying disturbs the relationship between individuals because it automatically leads to the loss of trust between them. To a greater scale, from a business ethics point-of-view, if a company lies, its customers and stakeholders will simply never believe that company again. With this in mind, I would like to think a bit about the example of Enron. Up to the company's bankruptcy, it had been one of the most respected companies in the world and an example of innovation and new approach to current affairs in the energy sector.

Once things started to be reveled about the company, facts that seemed to point out that the company was lying, the road downhill was incredibly fast. The company went from being the most respected to the most hated in the U.S.

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Enron became synonymous with institutional lying, with hiding and distorting information in order to maintain share prices at significant levels, with onerous reporting etc. Nobody ever trusted Enron again, because it had lied, and the company crumbled fast.

So, from a business ethics point-of-view, the individual advice of "don't lie" can be transformed into an institutional one: companies, do not lie! It is interesting to note how lying, for companies, can sometimes be legal. If, for example, a company cites the results of a test that point out to the benefits of a certain product or service it is commercializing, that is not considered lying. It is not, but, at the same time, it should also present the conclusions of other studies that contradict the given theory. Hiding the entire truth is also a form of lying and presenting just your side of the story is another.

From this perspective, as previously mentioned, I started with my core value (do not lie) and moved to a wider perspective to analyze how my own core value should apply to entire companies and how business ethics could incorporate such a value as not lying. Another core value that I have, following the initial thesis of the paper that goes from personal to community and company, is the respect for others.

There is a good saying that you should not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. The more general idea is, I think, that….....

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