Ethics Management in the 21st Century Building Organizations of Integrity(2006年公共管理国际会议论文).docVIP

Ethics Management in the 21st Century: Building Organizations of Integrity* Donald C. Menzel Director, Institute of Public Policy and Leadership, University of South Florida-Sarasota/Manatee donmenzel@ Abstract This paper examines the need to develop and use ethics management strategies to build organizations of integrity. Various organizational perspectives are also discussed as conceptual lenses to view ethics management strategies. The author argues that the most promising conceptual lens is organizational culture. Key words ethics, integrity, organization, culture, strategy 1 Introduction The possibility of ethics management has become a reality only in recent decades, although interest in ethics in Western culture can be traced to the Age of Antiquity. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) wrote about moral virtues such as courage, honesty, temperance, and responsibility. Virtue ethics, as this approach became known, has inspired and motivated human beings in vastly different cultures for many centuries. Other philosophers, such as the German Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), offered an alternative to virtue ethics. Kantian ethics focuses on duty as exemplified in the famous categorical imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” An act is accorded moral worth if the motive is principled. Ethical humans are duty bound to do the right thing. The Englishman John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) developed yet another view, asserting that one can know if an act is right or wrong only by its consequences. Thus utilitarian ethics as espoused by Mill calls for acts that result in desirable ends. The well-known maxim, “Do the greatest good for the greatest number,” continues to undergird the ethics philosophy of many. The view that moral ends justify immoral means is no more acceptable from a public ethos utilitarian perspective than is the view that moral means can be used to justify immoral