Master 1 « Aménagement du territoire »
24/01/2011
Introduction
Ford Pinto Story I) Reflexions autour du comportement éthique

Exemple de Kant (agir par intérêt ou par devoir)
Philosophers have identified 4 principles that people use to justify an action : moral principles, utilitarianism, human rights and individualism. Philosophy | Definition | Dilemma | Moral principles | Rules developped by societies and accepted by members | Who determines that a moral principle is generally accepted? | Utilitarianism | Effects on overall human well-being | Who determines the majority?Is the benefit assessed over the long or the short term? | Human rights | People have fundamental rights and liberties | What if the decision would protect the rights of some, but breach the rights of others? | Individualism | An act is moral if it protects the individual’s long-term interests | Whose self-interest is central to the debate? |

Examples :
►Moral principles : a senior manager who accepts a high salary even if the company has performed badly would be acting unethically as most people would feel it is against accepted ideas of fairness and equity.
►Utilitarianism : if you decide to sack employees because your company has bad performance you justify your action as ethical because you will save the jobs of other workers.
►Human rights : Monitoring employee e-mails could be seen as violating the right to privacy. However such monitoring could be ethically justified if there were good reasons to believe that e-mails were being used to sexually harass other people, so violating one of their human rights.
►Individualism : this is the “ethics of self-interest” which claims that an act is moral if it protects the individual’s long-terms interests. The assumption is that people will only maximise their personal self-interest if they do things that others value and are willing to pay for. This assumption may be incorrect in some instances such as if someone uses a