Ethics and Knowledge

Although not strictly a business related post ethics are becoming increasingly important today because society expects companies and organisations to act 'ethically.'

How can you or your society decide ethically which knowledge should or should not be pursued.

How can you or your society decide ethically which knowledge should or should not be pursued is a question to be resolved through ethical decision making. I prefer to apply the utilitarian theory in dealing with ethical questions. To understand this question though one must first understand what an ethical decision is, how the individual or society allows or disallows the pursuit of knowledge and examples of what and why certain decisions have been made in the pursuit of knowledge.

Moral Philosophy or ethics are all around us whenever we say something is right, wrong, good, or bad although not all decisions are based on ethical principles we make many ethical decisions every day both consciously and unconsciously. It occurs every time we used the word right or wrong and even good and bad or whenever we make a judgement about the worth of something. There are four parts to making an ethical decision.

The Utilitarian theory of ethical decision making is concerned with the well being of everybody as opposed to a theory based on self-interest or universal laws, which focus on the well being of individuals. It is mainly for this reason that utilitarianism impresses me as a standard because it is concerned with the welfare of the group – in fact, it puts the welfare of the group ahead of the welfare of individuals thus it is of a greater benefit to society ...

If you would like to read more feel free to download the full PDF.

This essay was submitted as part of Theory of Knowledge for International Baccalaureate 2002

Qantas Accused of Price Fixing ... Who is next?

During my young life I have associated words such as 'cartel' and 'fixing' with oil and cricket. Earlier this week a news report suggested that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) were taking their investigation into Qantas cargo and passenger price fixing to prosecution.

Perhaps this is not all too surprising to Qantas as they have set aside $A64 million to cover this potential liability. This is a prudent move as they have already been fined in the US for the same trans-Pacific trickery ACCC believes has occurred. However, this is not an isolated case in the air transportation industry as British Airways and Korean Air were also fined heavily in 2007 for similar practises. Will more airlines and alliances be exposed?

As a New Zealand air passenger this is a little alarming. Currently Air New Zealand and Qantas operate the majority of domestic air travel which begs the question, "Has Qantas tried to entice Air NZ in similar practises on the trans-Tasman route?" One would have to assume that this simply could not happen because of the governments 76% shareholding. However if price fixing has/is taking place the Labor Government could simply plead ignorance, just as it did in August 2007 when Air NZ ferried Australian forces into Kuwait contrary to government policy.

Maybe more cartels and fixing will be unearthed over the coming years as international institutions and the public call for more transparency throughout our globalised society.