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This module has been designed to build the foundation for a practical approach to virtue ethics. Student are provided with the names of several moral exemplars in business and professional ethics. They are then asked to identify the traits, attitudes, emotions, and skills that make these individuals moral exemplars. Textboxes acquaint students with moral exemplar studies that have been carried out. The links included in this module help students identify online and offline sources that describe moral exemplars and outline moral exemplar studies. This module is being developed as a part of an NSF-funded project, "Collaborative Development of Ethics Across the Curriculum Resources and Sharing of Best Practices," NSF SES 0551779.

Module introduction

Through the activities of this module you will learn to balance cautionary tales in business and professional ethics with new stories about those who consistently act in a morally exemplary way. While cautionary tales teach us what to avoid, narratives from the lives of moral exemplars show us how to be good. A study of moral best practices in business and professional ethics shows that moral exemplars exhibit positive and learnable skills. This module, then, looks at moral exemplars in business and the professions, outlines their outstanding accomplishments, and helps you to unpack the strategies they use to overcome obstacles to doing good.

You will begin by identifying outstanding individuals in business and associated practices who have developed moral "best practices." Your task is look at these individuals, retell their stories, identify the skills that help them do good, and build a foundation for a more comprehensive study of virtue in occupational and professional ethics.

Moral exemplar terms

    Moral exemplar

  • An individual who demonstrates outstanding moral conduct often in the face of difficult or demanding circumstances. (Beyond the “call of duty”Your first item here
  • Often moral exemplars perform actions that go beyond what is minimal, required, ordinary, or even extra-ordinary.
  • Moral exemplars perform actions that are "above and beyond the call of duty."
  • Most important, they perform these actions repeatedly across a career or even a lifetime. In some way, their exemplary conduct has become "second nature."

    Supererogatory

  • "A supererogatory act is an act that is beyond the call of duty. It is something that is morally good to do but not obligatory. Examples of supererogatory acts are donating blood, volunteering on a rape crisis hotline, babysitting (without accepting recompense) a friend’s two-year old triplets for the afternoon, or throwing oneself on a live hand grenade in order to save one’s buddies’ lives." (Baron, 1997: 614)
  • Baron's definition (found in the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics) captures how the supererogatory occupies a moral space well above that of the minimally decent or even the ordinary.Your second item here. Supererogatory actions are outstanding, extra-ordinary, and exemplary in both moral and practical senses.
  • Urmsom, a moral philosopher, remarks how the supererogatory has been neglected (up to the mid-twentieth century) by moral philosophy, dominated as it was in the previous century by the debate between Utilitarianism and Deontology.
  • Two quotations from Urmson show this clearly: (1) “But it does seem that these facts have been neglected in their general, systematic accounts of morality. It is indeed easy to see that on some of the best-known theories there is no room for such facts” (Urmson, 1958, p. 206). (2) “[s]imple utilitarianism, Kantianism, and intuitionism, then, have no obvious theoretical niche for the saint and the hero” (Urmson, 1958: 207).
  • Baron, M. (1997). “Supererogation”, Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics, Patricia H. Werhane and R. Edward Freeman, eds., New York: Blackwell: 614-7.
  • Urmson, J.O. (1958). “Saints and Heroes.” Essays in Moral Philosophy, A.I. Melden, ed., Seattle: University of Washington Press: 198-216.

Questions & Answers

what does the ideal gas law states
Joy Reply
Three charges q_{1}=+3\mu C, q_{2}=+6\mu C and q_{3}=+8\mu C are located at (2,0)m (0,0)m and (0,3) coordinates respectively. Find the magnitude and direction acted upon q_{2} by the two other charges.Draw the correct graphical illustration of the problem above showing the direction of all forces.
Kate Reply
To solve this problem, we need to first find the net force acting on charge q_{2}. The magnitude of the force exerted by q_{1} on q_{2} is given by F=\frac{kq_{1}q_{2}}{r^{2}} where k is the Coulomb constant, q_{1} and q_{2} are the charges of the particles, and r is the distance between them.
Muhammed
What is the direction and net electric force on q_{1}= 5µC located at (0,4)r due to charges q_{2}=7mu located at (0,0)m and q_{3}=3\mu C located at (4,0)m?
Kate Reply
what is the change in momentum of a body?
Eunice Reply
what is a capacitor?
Raymond Reply
Capacitor is a separation of opposite charges using an insulator of very small dimension between them. Capacitor is used for allowing an AC (alternating current) to pass while a DC (direct current) is blocked.
Gautam
A motor travelling at 72km/m on sighting a stop sign applying the breaks such that under constant deaccelerate in the meters of 50 metres what is the magnitude of the accelerate
Maria Reply
please solve
Sharon
8m/s²
Aishat
What is Thermodynamics
Muordit
velocity can be 72 km/h in question. 72 km/h=20 m/s, v^2=2.a.x , 20^2=2.a.50, a=4 m/s^2.
Mehmet
A boat travels due east at a speed of 40meter per seconds across a river flowing due south at 30meter per seconds. what is the resultant speed of the boat
Saheed Reply
50 m/s due south east
Someone
which has a higher temperature, 1cup of boiling water or 1teapot of boiling water which can transfer more heat 1cup of boiling water or 1 teapot of boiling water explain your . answer
Ramon Reply
I believe temperature being an intensive property does not change for any amount of boiling water whereas heat being an extensive property changes with amount/size of the system.
Someone
Scratch that
Someone
temperature for any amount of water to boil at ntp is 100⁰C (it is a state function and and intensive property) and it depends both will give same amount of heat because the surface available for heat transfer is greater in case of the kettle as well as the heat stored in it but if you talk.....
Someone
about the amount of heat stored in the system then in that case since the mass of water in the kettle is greater so more energy is required to raise the temperature b/c more molecules of water are present in the kettle
Someone
definitely of physics
Haryormhidey Reply
how many start and codon
Esrael Reply
what is field
Felix Reply
physics, biology and chemistry this is my Field
ALIYU
field is a region of space under the influence of some physical properties
Collete
what is ogarnic chemistry
WISDOM Reply
determine the slope giving that 3y+ 2x-14=0
WISDOM
Another formula for Acceleration
Belty Reply
a=v/t. a=f/m a
IHUMA
innocent
Adah
pratica A on solution of hydro chloric acid,B is a solution containing 0.5000 mole ofsodium chlorid per dm³,put A in the burret and titrate 20.00 or 25.00cm³ portion of B using melting orange as the indicator. record the deside of your burret tabulate the burret reading and calculate the average volume of acid used?
Nassze Reply
how do lnternal energy measures
Esrael
Two bodies attract each other electrically. Do they both have to be charged? Answer the same question if the bodies repel one another.
JALLAH Reply
No. According to Isac Newtons law. this two bodies maybe you and the wall beside you. Attracting depends on the mass och each body and distance between them.
Dlovan
Are you really asking if two bodies have to be charged to be influenced by Coulombs Law?
Robert
like charges repel while unlike charges atttact
Raymond
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Source:  OpenStax, Corporate governance. OpenStax CNX. Aug 20, 2007 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10396/1.10
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