Ideal Ethical Basis for Software Company's Standards

I recommend the moral theory of Objectivism as the basis of your software company’s ethical standards to be used by all company employees. This single, coherent, defensible moral theory is better applied to your company than multiple theories, because it is a value-based system of virtues that is concerned more with the type of person you should be, rather than with the rules that dictate how you should act. Moral Objectivism believes that there are moral standards that apply to everyone.

Moral standards that are universal for all, but not absolute because there can be exceptional cases. Objectivist principles apply to all, unless exceptions are necessary. Objectivism is also considered a philosophy for living, because it promotes values like love, friendship, wealth, and comfort. Objectivism respects science, technology, and innovation, which makes it very relevant in developing your software company’s organizational values and code of ethics.

Objectivism values purpose, achievement, success, and strives for good living to pursue the greatest achievements that you can attain in your life.

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It sets personal happiness as the major goal. Since most of us in the western world believe that a moral code of ethics is fundamental to our society, which makes Moral objectivism the best theory to apply within your software company. This theory allows your employees to grow, develop, and live together as one company of people working under one unified moral code. However, there could be a problem with people who are college students on a visa exchange program, green-card workers, or foreign-born/dual citizenship employees experienced working in a different culture in a different part of the world.

Moral Relativism believes that the current company moral standards are irrelevant to these people, but what applies is what is relative to what these individuals or their cultures believe. The problem with this theory is that it is impractical, illogical, and would cause mass confusion within your software company.

Since moral relativism is relative to a person or culture, different people and cultures would create different morals and principles leading to conflicts, disagreements, and disharmony. For example, we believe that killing is wrong for everyone, but some foreign cultures believe that killing is sometimes permissible and necessary. To unite, share, and promote harmony and respect, Objectivist virtues applied in your business ethics is the perfect moral theory for a young, fast-growing software company, because it is value-based on virtues. Virtuous actions lead to the achievement of values. When operating and managing a software company, the business virtue theory contends that virtuous principles, strategies, and actions result in companies realizing their values like mission, purpose, and profit potential. Virtuous employees carry out their roles in a competent manner, which usually agrees with company goals. Virtues allow a person to act to gain value.

When business people conform to the Objectivist virtues, they increase the likelihood of achieving their values and goals. Virtue ethics stresses the importance of each employee being able to make contributions of value. Valid virtue concepts are required to describe what it means to be an excellent director, leader, manager, or worker. To be successful, a software company needs to provide a set of virtues that are reality-based, non-contradictory, integrated, and comprehensive. Virtue theory states that ethics is part of business and that it is necessary to integrate morals into management and practice. The role of virtues in your company is to direct and motivate employee behavior toward the success of your company. A set of virtues exists that fit reality and most likely to lead to success and happiness in a business. Ayn Rand’s Objectivist ethics specifically recognizes production as the central human value. The personal virtues that she advocates have a direct bearing on work: rationality, honesty, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. These virtues are used as guides in a business career and in the business management.

They define the excellent manager or other employee and provide the principles that a company should adopt with respect to investors, employees, customers, or vendors. Virtue theory is concerned with the cultivation of character and provides a framework which a person can lead a flourishing, happy life. Moral growth comes from choice rather than from conformity to rules or codes. For example, traditional approaches like Consequentialism are viewed as constraining, because they focus on the rules that tell people how they should act, and nothing more. Utilitarianism concentrates on developing the principles instead of developing the character. Virtue theory provides a context in which strategies, plans, tactics, policies, and procedures are developed to attain a company stated mission and other relevant values. Virtuous employees experience the internal rewards of pride, self-esteem, and the joy of knowing that they did their jobs well.

The achievement of a company’s mission, purpose, or ultimate end requires virtuous action on the part of the company’s employees. The ultimate value for a business is financial value. The purpose of a business is to maximize owner value over the length of the company. Virtuous behavior is required at all levels of a company from employees who realize that business is a natural and moral means by which they can satisfy their personal needs and attain their success as individual human beings. A virtuous employee begins by understanding what the facts are and does not evade the distinction between the real and the unreal. For making business decisions, an employee needs to use his reason to make rational, logical decisions based on the facts of reality. Much of morality in business falls under the virtue of honesty. Honesty means being in reality. Honesty is basic to the structure of human relationships.

Dishonesty is self-defeating, because it involves being in conflict with realty. Morality in business involves objectively recognizing and dealing with customers, employees, creditors, stockholders, and others as autonomous rational individuals with their particular goals and desires. Honesty is closely related to the virtue of justice. Justice, a form of faithfulness to reality, is the virtue of granting to each person that which each person deserves. Justice is the expression of man’s rationality in his dealings with other men and involves seeking and granting what they have earned. For example, a virtuous manager must make sure that customers get what they pay for. In addition, he needs to identify employees for what they accomplish and treat them accordingly. Employees should be objectively appraised and compensated based on their contribution toward achieving a company’s mission, values, or goals.

A virtuous manager discriminates among all those that he deals with such as customers, distributors, suppliers, and workers based on relevant qualities and personal merits such as ability, competency, performance, and character. He does not improperly discriminate based on irrelevant characteristics such as sex, race, or nationality. In summary, when you are using the moral objectivists values-based on virtues for your software company, you will never have to worry about being bailed on Wall Street like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, GM or Chrysler Corporation. Since we know that greed and dishonesty were major vices that heavily contributed to this financial mess, we can confidently move forward as a software company knowing that our moral code in place would never allow that to happen.