Awareness of Our Moral Virtues and Mistakes - Assignment Example

Aristotelian friendship

Arthur works in a financial crediting company as an auditor, while Joe, his friend, is the human resource manager of their organization. They one day go out for lunch together, and Arthur shares his biggest secret with Joe about a "good" deal he struck a month ago through embezzlement of funds from a client. Arthur explains how good he felt until he realized the client had complained and had not realized that the company management staff was already looking into the matter. Joe is already aware of this, but he does not tell Arthur that he knows and enquires more about the incident. Joe is among the seniors looking into the misappropriation of the funds by the auditing department and takes the opportunity to get more information on how he perpetrated the crime. Their talk does not end over a lunch break, and due to their tight schedule at work and different working stations, they converse over messages on their phones. Unfortunately, Arthur does not have a clue that Joe was sourcing more information and concrete evidence against him on the matter instead of cautioning him and offering him a chance to go ahead and confess his flaw.

A few weeks later, Arthur is summoned to a management meeting that does not end well. He is grilled for his crime, and sad enough for him, his best friend Joe is among the seniors expected to make the final decision on his fate. Arthur is suspended indefinitely from work. The human resource manager and his friend Joe in the meantime, was left with the task to appeal for Arthur into getting another chance to work with the company. He argues that despite Arthur having made the mistake of stealing from a client, he was hardworking, ambitious, and had opened to him of his mistake with the prove from their messages. He says that Arthur was guilty but remorseful for his actions and deserved a second chance since it was his first time committing the crime. Joe defends their friendship by claiming that he did not want to hide the truth from Arthur, but he needed the information on how Arthur had done it to advise on how to curb similar crimes from occurring in the future.

According to Aristotle, friendship is conscious reciprocated goodwill whereby mainly, preference and value friendships are essential for even human association, and they will last even amongst those who have shaped character friendships. According to Aristotle, self-knowledge is not an unintentional feature of the righteous life but an essential part of it. The only means by which we can be sufficiently aware of our moral virtues and mistakes is to rely on friends who make us conscious of the nature of our behavior and condition. Such a deceptively actual situation can only be understood once the expectations it involves are made clear. Joe proves to be a true friend who realizes his friend's morals and character and can argue things on his defense.

Questions

• Is Joe an excellent friend to Arthur? If yes, why and if no, why do you think so?
• Why do you think Arthur shared his secret with Joe?
• If you were in Joe’s position and Arthur was your friend, what would you have done if you found yourself in the same situation?

The golden means

Alex is the owner of a business that imports and sells clothes and beauty products for women worldwide. Alex came into the limelight following his case, where he was faced with fraud and financial crime charges, where he used fraudulent investment techniques. He convinced the investors to invest in his import business with the hope of them earning large amounts of cash in profit. In Alex's situation, he did not invest the money from the various investors instead, he used the money to clear the debts he had accumulated while starting his business and also his personal debts. He lived in a large mansion while his wife held parties while having random shopping sprees, and his children attended the most prestigious schools. He continued looking for investors to persuade one to invest while he used the money to pay off the older investors (rob one while paying the other). Alex, later on, admitted on what he was doing after his employee threatened to expose him to the investors. He had initially tried to bribe the employee with money and a promotion in the company, but his efforts failed. The employee named Jane refused the offer arguing that it was not fair or morally right to use people's hard-earned money for one's pleasure and benefit. Jane felt that Alex was using his position as the company's sole owner to take advantage of business-minded people. Jane gave him the option of either returning the money invested or confess to his crimes. Since he didn't have all the money required, he opted for the confession. He was later arrested and was charged in a court of law for fraud. He was however left free on a bail fee, which was a huge sum amount of money during the court trials. Later through his lawyers he was able to bribe the judge and get an easier sentence passed on him where he was required to serve jail term for only five years.

Businesses and their owners are required to observe certain moral and ethical rule as they have an obligation towards the public to make sure that their properties are well managed and made profitable. A person has the right to be truthful to the client, investors, partners and even the employees on the issues in the company. The employees are also required to be honest in their dealings within and even when not at work even if no one is watching their every move. Moral behavior according to Aristotle is simply a mean between two extremes; the right and the wrong and when one finds a moderate position to act between those two extremes one is considered morally right. He emphasizes that morality is not about doing one’s duty but rather seeking good consequences that is doing something not because one is paid to do so but rather because one knows that it is the right thing that would bring happiness to the greater population of people.

Questions

1. What measures the right or wrong of an action?

2. Was Jane right to refuse the bribe offered to her by her boss?

3. What differentiates a good act from being morally disserving?

Eudemonia

James manages the family company’s business and works alongside with his father. James is the overseeing manager and his father is the overall boss. The father treats employees in a harshly manner, he is mean to them and has literally created a barrier between himself and all the other workforces except for his son. James’ father leaves for a business trip and James gets a good opportunity to get his father’s employees to know him better. James arranges a general meeting with all the staff and asks them to air their grievances, complaints and complements since he explained to them that he could understand them better than his father would, he does this in a polite way and even provides incentives and snacks to make them feel more comfortable in the meeting. He discusses salaries, working conditions and renewal of employment contracts as well as recruitment and training programs. James is able to get a positive feedback by creating a rapport with the employees and the meeting is productive.

James works so hard to make the demands and suggestions of the employees met and those that had to wait being processed awaiting implementation. His father later returns from his trip weeks later and finds a different working system that James explains to him was his idea and that things were running smoothly. He also asks his father to leave the responsibility of the staff to him and let himself worry about the external outcomes of their work and the business in general. He therefore gets full control over the employees but in order to protect their interests and for the good of the company’s performance. After some months of consistent monitoring and good employee relationship, James achieves greater company performance and his father is happy about the company progress.

According to Aristotle, if James is a good leader, he ought to be excellent in good management. Despite the many roles that he plays, it is only by excelling in all of them that we can say he achieves eudaimonia. Despite the specific roles we all play in life, we all share a purpose which is the things we do to make us human. James achieves being a moral person by composing and controlling his emotions and exercising a reason that enables him to achieve the best conditions possible for him as a human being and in every sense not only for happiness but also virtue, morality and a meaningful life. Eudaimonia is inclusive of being a good person and does not originate from pleasure even though it does lead to pleasure.

Questions

• How is Eudaimonia achieved and how is it different from happiness?
• Does James’ actions make him a virtuous person and how does this make him different from him father?
• As an employee or employer, what other virtues and how would they be put in place to make managers more human like James?