Managers’ Development of Ethical Awareness and Personal Morality

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/00483489010140107
Pages13-20
Published date01 January 1990
Date01 January 1990
AuthorRobin Snell
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour
ETHICAL AWARENESS AND
PERSONAL
MORALITY 13
H
ow do managers develop and change
their understandings of ethical practice
during the course of their working lives?
Managers'
Development
of Ethical
Awareness
and Personal
Morality
by Robin Snell
Introduction
In line with definitions offered by
Beauchamp[1,
pp. 1-3],
I
will
take "ethics" to mean the philosophical investigation
of what may be "right" or "wrong" purposes or ways
of living, or "good or evil" rules, patterns of conduct,
sanctions and rewards. It entails questioning, critique and
argumentation. By contrast, "morality" will be taken to
be the set of positions adopted on ethical issues.
In a strongly monolithic, possibly theocratic, culture or
sub-culture, morality would be the hegemonic set of
stances on ethical issues: "what persons ought to do in
order to conform to society's norms of behaviour"
[1,
pp.
2-3].
Morality would be shared
by
all "normal" members,
officially at least, and those known to depart from it would
be treated as deviants.
The assumption in this article is that cultural forces in
Britain, as they
impinge
on managers, tend
to
be pluralistic
with respect to morality, permitting the development of
a
personal
morality: the set of ethical positions to which
an individual holds. In this article, the development of
personal morality will be considered, and the means by
which and ends for which the processes of moral
development in managers may be researched are
suggested.
"Stages of Development"
Research into the development of personal morality has
tended to focus on children and adolescents. From the
many studies conducted, the concept of "stages of
development" has emerged.
Probably the best known theory of moral development
is that of
Kohlberg[2],
who claims that there is a universal
and invariant sequence to moral development entailing a
progression through three levels of reasoning as the
individual
matures.
At the first,
preconventional
level,
moral
reasoning is, he says, based on fear of punishment and
immediate self-interest. At the second,
conventional
level,
it is, he claims, based on social convention and a desire
to be respected by others. At the third,
postconventional
level, it entails, according to Kohlberg, autonomous
reasoning based
on
universal principles of justice, fairness,
equality and reciprocity.
Kohlberg[3] initially assumed that development would be
completed in childhood and adolescence, but later he
claimed
[4]
that such development may continue thorough
adulthood. There has been, in recent years, a concern
to understand patterns of moral development
in
adulthood.
Now the idea that some adult human beings are more
"developed" than others in regard to personal morality
faces a major difficulty. On a "strong" interpretation, it
can be taken to imply that those at "later stages" are
in touch with and operate in accordance with a superior
ethical theory, yet in philosophy no such theory has
emerged, and in religion there are many competing
systems of
belief.
As
Mackie[5] points out, philosophy can
offer no firm, unquestionable foundation for any moral
perspective.
A "weaker" view of moral development is that it entails
the ability to understand "earlier" positions while taking
account of more arguments and taking less for granted.
At "later stages" of development one's reasoning would
not so much lead one to the "right" moral choices as
away from fallacies that others, at earlier stages, would
tend to overlook. While this "weaker" perspective is
provisionally adopted, it is suggested that it is held open
to question throughout any research project.
Many theorists [e.g. 6,7,8], tend to support the notion of
stages of moral development, and adopt terms and
definitions for the "earlier" stages of
moral
reasoning that
are similar to Kohlberg's preconventional and conventional
levels.
Some theorists, however, part company with
Kohlberg regarding the nature of the "later" stages of
moral reasoning. Gilligan[9, 10] argues that Kohlberg's

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