Traditionally ethics have been viewed by many within the world of business as an unnecessary, or indeed unhelpful asset. This is because in respect to making profit in any business, morality is usually seen as inevitably more often than not an inhibiting factor instead of a stimulating one. Proof of this seems to be that one of the defining features of classic laissez faire capitalist economics is a lack of interference in business affairs by governments. If laws, taxes and legal boundaries in general are seen as disruptive to allowing capitalist ventures to prosper, then it is easy to assume - since it seems a fair assumption to suggest a correlation between the two - that on a small scale moral limitations will have a similar effect. Essentially, if you have no ethics then you are in a position with more freedom than if you do. For instance if you refuse to sell a product to an evil dictator on the grounds that it is morally unacceptable, but your main competitor has no such qualms, then obviously he shall make the profit and you will lose out. This example can be seen as representing a nearly infinite range of possible scenarios where morality can get in the way of just making money. Another case could be where someone was unwilling to start producing goods abroad at a cheaper rate because doing so would lead to forced redundancies at his original factory, as well as meaning he would be profiting from slave labour; as a result he doesn't export production and goes out of business. If the pursuit of profit is prioritised over all other ethical principles, then it would seem that success is guaranteed by the plethora of scenarios where doing the wrong thing over the right thing means you come out on top.
However, there is more to the debate than this. For just because individual scenarios can be theorised where being immoral is effective, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that always being unethical will have an overall positive effect. For there are undeniably also cases where having consistent ethics will have a positive effect on your business. For example, if you always pay back the money you are lent - instead of unethically refusing to pay back your creditors - then over time you will gain a good reputation among lenders and thus be able to get your hands on money from them. In this case limiting your short term benefit - by not refusing to pay back the money - means that you have a long term benefit, and therefore it seems that behaving ina n ethical way can reward you. An analogy can be found in evolutionary science, where it was found that early humans were more likely to survive by getting along with one another and adhering to what we might term an ethical code, than just doing whatever they wanted regardless of the consequences. Since its impossible to prove if ethics exist outside the human mind, really the only consideration you should have is whether it will benefit you, and as we have seen that is dependent upon the circumstances.
However, there is more to the debate than this. For just because individual scenarios can be theorised where being immoral is effective, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that always being unethical will have an overall positive effect. For there are undeniably also cases where having consistent ethics will have a positive effect on your business. For example, if you always pay back the money you are lent - instead of unethically refusing to pay back your creditors - then over time you will gain a good reputation among lenders and thus be able to get your hands on money from them. In this case limiting your short term benefit - by not refusing to pay back the money - means that you have a long term benefit, and therefore it seems that behaving ina n ethical way can reward you. An analogy can be found in evolutionary science, where it was found that early humans were more likely to survive by getting along with one another and adhering to what we might term an ethical code, than just doing whatever they wanted regardless of the consequences. Since its impossible to prove if ethics exist outside the human mind, really the only consideration you should have is whether it will benefit you, and as we have seen that is dependent upon the circumstances.
