Appeal to Higher Loyalties For this next post in our rationalization series, we will address “Appeal to Higher Loyalties”. The Business Ethics Field Guide describes this principle in the following manner: “Ethical dilemmas often require you to choose one value over another. This makes appealing to your higher loyalties a particularly effective neutralization technique. You’ll know you’re in this trap when you feel fine about doing harm on the way to achieving or honoring something important to you.” Appealing to higher loyalties is a tricky neutralization technique. As most of us know, ethical decisions are rarely black and white, often

Condemnation of Condemners: As the fourth installment in our series of posts dissecting the techniques of neutralization, we will address “condemnation of condemners”. As defined in The Business Ethics Field Guide, “condemnation of condemners” refers to finding fault in the entities or people who might criticize us. To understand this concept better, here are some potential real-life examples of condemning the condemner:  Upon receiving a bad grade on an assignment, a student might blame the teacher for giving him/her the bad grade instead of accepting that the assignment was not their best work. The student could, for example, blame the

Business Ethics: Important or Not? In the simplest of terms, business ethics is VERY important. Let’s see what Investopedia.com can teach us on the matter: Ethics in Leadership: “Building on a foundation of ethical behavior helps create long-lasting positive effects for a company, including the ability to attract and retain highly talented individuals, and building and maintaining a positive reputation within the community.” Employee Ethics: “Employees make better decisions in less time with business ethics as a guiding principle; this increases productivity and overall employee morale.” Business Ethics Benefits: “With consistent ethical behavior comes an increasingly positive public image, and there

The Separation Fallacy A recent article on the MIT Sloan Review website discusses the role of ethics in business transactions for both the customer and the salesperson. Do we ever consider ethics when making a transaction ourselves? Yes, quite often we do. But do we call upon our ethics in all transactions – or just in cases to benefit ourselves? Read the article HERE for some interesting insights on building long-term ethical relationships in business. “Cases A and B are examples of what business ethicists call the separation fallacy. This is the tendency in business theory — and in business