Aristotle’s Ideas on Civic Relationships
According to Aristotle, happiness is a critical provision in life. His perceptions on happiness have remained unchanged for years. Most people still accept happiness to be exactly what Aristotle described it to be. However, the greatest challenge for most philosophers has been determining what exactly constitutes the best life. Numerous genres of happiness from various philosophers are obtained from Aristotle’s perception.
He tackled this subject of happiness on the foundation of enquiry into what is really good for human beings in connection to the actual meaning of goodness itself. On the subject of happiness, the philosophy of Aristotle suggests that area is what creates a disparity between Man and animals.
He quoted giraffe as an illustration. He found that, in most cases, happiness is closely related to pleasure, which is also closely related to performance. Aristotle argued that man is more absorbed into doing an activity that is pleasant to him.
According to Aristotle, evading goodness do not contribute to pleasure, and again pleasure is never restricted to body pleasures like satisfying the physical requirements like starvation and exhaustion or even erotic pleasure since these are the kind of things that would prevent man from achieving happiness. Therefore, according to his argument, these pleasures results into happiness.
On the subject of deliberation, Aristotle believed that the responsibility for the morality originates for an individual’s free will. He argues that, since morality is not laws, an individual can never be forced to be responsible morally; instead he should be willing to do that. In addition, these are expectations that each and every individual in any kind of society is anticipated to meet, based on the customs and beliefs of that society.
Each and every individual is responsible for the kind of activities they are involved in, which is based on their moral principles in determining whether it is actually good or evil. Each activity is related to knowledge and an individual does an activity because of deliberation.
However, a rational expanse of volitional regulator is necessary to be implemented so that an individual can be morally responsible. An individual should be directed by some moral controls in his or her every action (Lynch & Sandra 25).
According to Ahner (27), civic relationship is described as the set of behaviors that institutions observe while conducting their operations. Business ethics and morality consider how a business interacts with its clients. The two virtues influence companies, other business entities, government organs, and other organizations. Although a considerable overlap exists amidst business ethics and law, both terms are contradictory.
Business law is described as institutionalization or codification of business ethics into precise societal rules, regulations as well as interdictions. Conversely, business laws can be defined as the least tolerable standards of behavior. In contrary, morality considers norms, values, and beliefs entrenched in the societal procedures used to identify the right or wrong deeds.
There are arguments that business ethics involves the study of morality and making use of reasoning to clarify certain rules and principles that identify the integrity of any business. In this research paper, how business ethics and morality intersect with life is discussed with respect to already established works.
Aristotle argued that justice in a society is comprised of either a virtue or character trait of the person being referred to in any situation. Justice, according to him, is comprised of the motives and the conduct of a person. Aristotle perceived a society to be comprised of both active and passive individuals.
He described active individuals to be involved in activities that happen in a society, while passive people does not participate but sit to watch as actions are executed by other people. Aristotle viewed justice to be a kind of an instantaneous act done amid two excesses as a reaction to some situations. He recognizes two extreme ways of identifying the character of a nation. These are its actions and inactions.
Therefore, an individual is considered as arrogant if they are deprived of the character traits of a polite person. According to Aristotle, the character traits that are linked to justice are merely equivocal and injustice has some features, which could either be external and internal. Thus individuals who are avaricious or are unruly could be considered as unjust.
Keeping law and order is thus essential in addition to evading things that are considered to be against the prospects of the society so as to be just, a virtue encouraged by Aristotle. He further argued that justice have to distributive and practical to every citizen irrespective of their status in the world.
An individual can do virtuous things to the other depending on the friendship between them. Aristotle argues that, friendship is dependent upon virtue, love and joint respect on the basis of relationship. This kind of friendship is never grounded on any advantage, desire or material. It is unpretentious relationship which is founded on honest concern for each other, but not for any benefit, material or something else.
Such associates convert into soul mates and it clarifies why such relationships are scarce, particularly in the younger generation. An individual who offers a gift to another person might not do this merely due to the simple act of giving it out to them, instead on the deliberation that the receiver of that gift could counter later, probably with something more treasured.
Another individual could as well do so because of his or her honest concern for the partner, or since they have their common interest. Moral virtues should not be taken into consideration for individuals in a relationship to achieve the right friends, since not every person can have them (Stern-Gillet & Suzanne 78).
Justice provides a systematic approach that defines (in legal terms) the adoption of fair working conditions. The justice theory is set to empower employees by enabling them to understand their rights and terms of working engagement. The theory states that there must be “fair pay for fair work done” by individuals. It disqualifies discrimination and unfair practices that compromise individual’s functionality.
The system provides relevant incentives that seek to advance understanding of employee’s rights in terms of compensation, and benefits that they are entitled to in their work place. Justice fights for economic equality and justice in the management of employee remuneration system. It states that employees must be treated with dignity and that their compensation should be provided in a structured manner that satisfies their needs.
Consequently, the theory presents pertinent incentives that aid education to workers, advocates, and legal staff on the best strategies for the collection of unpaid benefits. This is to ensure that employees are able to successfully claim their paid wages from the institutions that are not keen in compensating their services.
Review of the Traits of the “Best Places to Work”
The traits proposed in ‘best places to work’ are analogous to those supported by Aristotle on his perceptions and ideas on civic relationships regarding happiness and numerous other issues discussed like moral accountability, justice, friendship as well as deliberations.
In trying to make their institute the best place to work in, the Great places to work embarks on different initiatives of paying attention to their work force to ensure that they appreciate whatever it is necessary to be implemented to achieve this objective. The best to work institute acknowledges the importance of conviction amongst all its work force as well as amongst employees and their management.
The institutions have developed on a philosophy that nurtures higher levels of confidence within their workstation so as to make it the greatest as they can conceivably attain. This is done by undertaking consistent study of all their employees and analysis of their cultures.
Within the Best places to work institute, there are experts in the area of trust which play a very significant role in helping them to build a relationship dependent upon trust not only amongst workers themselves but also between the personnel and their management in order to make it a great workplace. Faith is established in each and every relationship within the institute, something which leads onto development of the institutions.
Leaders assist in making sure that the institutions accomplishes this objective. They guarantee an atmosphere that is favorable for teamwork and cooperation so as to realize an optimistic workplace. The foundation of the institute is focused on their employees.
Trust is signified in a wide ranging ways, with more attention being paid on its significance so as to ensure great relationships in the workplace. Best places to work support a viable strength while simultaneously building successful relations that are cooperative amongst all individuals, without regard to their rank within the institution.
As argued, Institutions s should implement various HRM management practices in order to remain relevant in the global market. Due to its production and marketing capacity, the institutions demands novel HRM practices in the context of HR planning, recruitment of employees, selection criteria, training and development provisions, compensation plans, as well as performance management.
Another credible provision is the establishment and ratification of diversity provisions within the Institutions s’ workforce. In trying to make institutes best places to work in, cultural diversity is increasingly being a challenge and a captivating feature of both individual lives as well as the contexts in which companies and institutions operate.
Because of the obvious challenges of the culturally-sensitive areas in which the company operates, Institutions s have to take credible policy initiatives to ensure that it attains its diversity tolerance initiatives. A policy herein refers to a statement of procedures guiding the stakeholders of an institution on how responsibilities should be conducted.
Foremost, successful institutions s applies diversity within their workforce to gain competitive advantage. Institutions s should adopt policies that increase the cultural, gender, and racial variety within its workforce. To enhance its competitive advantage, diversity recruitment policies will propel the company to the global limelight.
In the Aristotle’s context, any institutions should also understand the benefits of a diverse workforce. In this regard, the management should use training programs to elucidate the advantages of indulging diverse ideas within the institutions.
Teamwork policies have been critical in most culturally diverse institutions. When adequately incorporated, the policy helps to develop the feeling and spirit of unity as well as togetherness towards a collective goal. In teamwork, the objective for a collective goal overrides the diversity of members.
This forms a quality recipe for competitive advantage within institutions. For example, ethical and philosophical concerns as well as corporate policies should be sound and solid to enhance competitiveness amidst cultural diversity of the workforce. The corporate vision statement ought to be constructed in a manner that reflects the institution’s commitment to cultural diversity.
This should be backed-up by a powerful vision. The company’s time-off policies should also prop up cultural uniqueness for holidays as well as religious observances. As Aristotle could have argued, other policies should also outline the training of managers on cultural diversity sensitivity.
Aristotle’s Ideas About Civic Relationships and Contemporary Notions of Best Places to Work
It is evident that corporations endeavor to depend on the civic relations, which were suggested by Aristotle for individuals to coexist peacefully and in agreement, not only in the work place but also exterior to work environment. Happiness is stressed as the foundation to satisfaction of workers through forming relations based on trust. Trust is considered as a necessary requisite for a lasting relationship.
In order to ensure justice within institutions s, companies employ fair practices, in which the rights of the work force are protected so as to generate good relations among themselves and the administration. The virtues highlighted by Aristotle have proved very significant in these corporations particularly on the subject of moral responsibility.
Each and every employee has a moral obligation to be concerned about other people and undertake what is good instead of the evil to nurture good relations amongst the work force and the administration. Workers perform best when they are happy in any work environment.
These corporations safeguard happiness amongst their workers and attempt to make everybody appreciated by making sure equality among all individuals. These are the things Aristotle argued for.
Concurrently, when legitimate moral values, regulations, and obligations are exposed to ethical examination, their association to fundamental human interests, irrespective of their cultural backgrounds, is very significant. Moral standards may vary, and moral perception seeks whether the actions that are conventionally and precisely legitimated by conviction, law or legislations are certainly worthy of recognition.
In the Aristotle’s context, the advancement of ethics in the earlier century has been described by a propensity to revalue and conquest the moral agreements that have steered the relations between sexes, people and animals as well as people and their surroundings.
A more current duty of ethics is to repel those predispositions of globalization, marketization and advancements in technology that corrode both biodiversity and respected features of cultural identity-and could even have impacts that lurk human rights. Even though tendencies are most cases accessible as value-neutral, they contain concealed expectations that are impending sources of unfairness and abuse.
Such arguments indicate how business ethics and morality intersect life. This is a fundamental provision when considered critically. Such arguments compare and contrast the Aristotle’s ideas on civic relationships with contemporary workplaces.
Works Cited
Ahner, Christopher. Business ethics. New York, NY: Orbis Press, 2007. Print.
Lynch, Sandra. Philosophy and Friendship. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. Print.
Stern-Gillet, Suzanne. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1995. Print.