Observing the UN World Day of Social Justice causes us to contemplate ethical thinking in its many forms. Critical justice issues now include poverty eradication, full and proactive employment, decent work for all, and social inclusion. In thinking about these issues, there is a tendency to use the conventional approach to ethical thinking which is often viewed differently by various groups. The conventional, or usual, approach to ethics thinking is to compare a decision, practice or policy with prevailing norms of acceptability in society. I call this the “conventional approach” because this is how general society tends to think. This method relies often on common sense, and it usually means just comparing actions or behaviors with what is generally thought to be the prevailing norms of acceptability in the culture or society. The major challenge with this approach is answering the questions “whose ethical norms do we use” and “what ethical norms are prevailing?” There is considerable room for variability on both questions, and this is why differences of opinion often arise when using them.
Thought-to-be legitimate norms may emanate from a variety of sources such as family, friends, religious beliefs, the local community, one’s employer, the law, the profession and so on. In addition, one’s conscience, one’s personal judgment or one’s self-interest might be seen by many to be an applicable source of ethical norms in the conventional approach. In many circumstances, conventional thinking and judging may be useful and appropriate. What does one do, however, if norms from one source conflict with norms from another source? Also, how can we be sure that social norms are appropriate or defensible?
Culture today sends us many and often conflicting standards about social justice from television, movies, books, music and social media and they do not always reflect high or defensible ethical standards. An example of the conflicting messages we see today occur in the realm of sexual harassment, a common human rights issue. On the one hand today’s television, movies, advertisements and music are replete with sexual innuendo and the treatment of women and men as sex objects. This commonality might suggest that such behavior is normal, acceptable, even desired. On the other hand, the law in many countries and states are stringently prohibiting sexual gestures or innuendo in the workplace as possibly constituting a hostile work environment resulting in a sex discrimination lawsuit. In this example, we see a norm that is prevalent in culture and society clashing with a norm arising from employment law and business ethics. This example illustrates how views of ethics that are tolerated by many in normal society would not be acceptable in more rigorous forms of ethical analysis.
Further complicating this conventional perspective is that one may compare an act with prevailing norms of acceptability in society but then this comparison is seen through the perceptions and sensitivities of the observers and their value judgments as to what truly occurred (the actual behavior) and what prevailing norms of acceptability are. This means that different people could see the same behavior or practice and reach different conclusions as to whether the behavior or practice was ethical or not. In today’s often polarized society, this happens all the time and is the basis for interpersonal and societal conflicts. This judgment process about social justice becomes quite complex as perceptions of what is ethical invariably lead to the difficult task of ranking different values against one another. Any approach to ethical thinking is likely to result in differences of opinion, but the conventional approach especially leads to different modes of analysis of ethical thinking.
My next column will discuss ethical principles grounded in a stronger foundation than conventional methods.
Professor emeritus, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, USA. Dr. Carroll received his three academic degrees in management (1965; 1966; 1972) from the College of Business, The Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida USA). He is founding author and now co-author of BUSINESS & SOCIETY: ETHICS, SUSTAINABILITY & STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT (2023), 11th edition, with Jill A Brown; Co-author of CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE which won the 2014 BEST BOOK AWARD at the Academy of Management--Social Issues in Management Meeting; and Author of BUSINESS ETHICS: BRIEF READINGS ON VITAL TOPICS. Carroll won the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from the Institute of Management, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, International Association for Business & Society, and the Southern Management Association. He has published over 100 articles, and his citations exceed 100,000 according to Google Scholar Citations.