Managerial Ethics

In Wednesday's class we talked about managerial ethics and identified three different situations. The three ethics we discussed are Machiavelli, Lincoln, and Platonic. We found that Machiavelli's ethic means, "the end justifies the means." A collective end worth pursuing is political stability, and an individual end worth pursuing is the acquisition and retention of power. Abraham Lincoln's ethic basically says, I work for the union and I have to do what the people I work for want and my job is to protect the union. He wanted to free the slaves because he thought it would keep the union together. The third ethic is Platonic. This involved the people divided into three different groups. First there was a small group of people, kind of like the "leaders" or "best of the best" to rule society. Below them are the "guardians" which involved the military class or people who were considered good, but didn't make it to the top. Finally at the bottom we have the merchants, farmers, traders, and business people. I think that our society is kind of based off of Lincoln's ethic. Everyone is willing to help others because that is the right thing to do, but we have restrictions that prevent us from doing so.