Business Ethic Quiz

Quiz 1

The case study is worth max 20 points. The four multiple-choice questions are each worth 5 points. You can earn in total max 40 points.

Please submit your answers through the digital drop box.

Deadline: Thursday, September 20, 10 PM.

1. Imagine you are a CEO in a US bank and you are sent to Italy to administer the bank’s business in that country. You are able to increase the profits in Italy by modernizing the Italian branches. However, your Italian lawyers advise you not to lose sight of the fact that things work differently in Italy than in the US. In particular they recommend that you follow the Italian way of filing taxes. In Italy the tax authorities do not expect that companies report their revenues. They expect that they underestimate them, so that they will be called in by the tax authorities to negotiate their taxes. The American CEO does not like this idea. He insists that he will report their revenue as he would do in the US. But the tax authorities assumed that they had underestimated their revenue. As a result they had to pay twice as much in tax as they were supposed to.

If you are a moral relativist, which strategy will you take? Explain first what moral relativism is and what its normative implications are. Then argue how you would act if you were a moral relativist. Would you have reported the bank’s revenue as you did? You should not discuss this from a common sense viewpoint, unless you can argue that a moral relativist has common sense!

Please discuss these questions in a 300-400 word essay.

1. An act utilitarian believes that an act is right if it

1. Follows a principle

1. Reflects our culture

1. Maximizes the happiness of those affected

1. Maximizes moral values

1. A rule utilitarian believes that an act is right if it

1. Is in accordance with conventional morality

1. Is in accordance with society

1. Follows rules that are justified by the utilitarian principle

1. Promotes the best consequences

1. Preference utilitarianism claims that:

1. we know what happiness is

1. happiness is not the only intrinsic value

1. happiness is what people say it is

1. happiness is what experts say it is

1. Moral relativism claims that:

1.

what is right is right for one individual and may be wrong for another individual

1. what is right is what is right for everybody

1. what is right is what is right for a society

1. what is right is what is right for most people