Ethical Evaluation

Making one unethical act does not in the
long-term make a business an unethical enterprise.

One must analyze a wide spectrum of behavior to understand the moral and nature of a business. Unscrupulous business people are easy to spot if an ethicist checks their behavior against a list of possible behaviors in mind. A business engaged in fraud, for example, reveals a cluster of dishonest habits such as concealment, misrepresentation, leading the client to false expectations, bait and switch tactics and so forth. A fundamental question to ask in any evaluation "does the business do what it says it will do?" This includes all the subtleties of symbol, speech and emotion that carry an implicit promise.

An ethicist does not need to know with certainty weather an action is right or wrong; what they need to know is a description of the nature of the various business practices that define a business.

For example, one does not need to know with precision that "opportunistic businesses" are right or wrong since the word opportunistic is a long established moral term that says much of the nature of a business. An opportunistic business essentially "lays in wait" to take advantage of another person. In this sense an opportunistic enterprise cannot be fully trusted since their pricing structure can suddenly change to take advantage of an oversight or lack of knowledge on the part of their client.

Opportunistic is but one moral term describing behavior. There are hundreds of other such terms that when taken together paint a picture of a businesses moral nature. The buying public is not so much interested in knowing exactly weather a wrong has been committed, all they need to know is if a business can be fully trusted.

Associated Concepts
Integrity
Patterns of Fraud
Patterns of Deception
Patterns of Misrepresenting Products or Services
Leading the Client to False Expectations
Spiking