Differentiate the concepts of morality and social ethics.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The fundamental question of ethics "How should we live?" can be interpreted in two ways.
"We" can mean each one of us individually, or it might mean all of us collectively. In the first sense, this is a question about how I should live my life, how I should act, what I should do, and what kind of person I should be. This meaning of ethics is sometimes referred to as morality, and it is the aspect of ethics that we refer to by the phrase "personal integrity." There will be many times within a business setting where an individual will need to step back and ask: "What should I do? How should I act?"
In the second sense, "How should we live?" refers to how we live together in a community. This is a question about how a society and social institutions such as corporations ought to be structured and about how we ought to live together. This area is sometimes referred to as social ethics and it raises questions of justice, public policy, law, civic virtues, organizational structure, and political philosophy. In this sense, business ethics is concerned with how business institutions ought to be structured, about corporate social responsibility, and about making decisions that will impact many people other than the individual decision maker. This aspect of business ethics asks us to examine business institutions from a social rather than an individual perspective. This broader social aspect of ethics is referred to as decision making for social responsibility.