Question

19SP Business Law (BUS-120- NA) Dashboard/ My courses /19SP BUS-120-NA/Week 2: Jan. 14-21 / Assignment 1 Assignment 1 After reading this week's text assignment, do some internet research and then elaborate upon how the law relates to business, ethics, and society. For example: explain how laws evolve from our society's ethics. Which is the higher standard, ethics or law? Be sure to respond in a business-like manner using proper spelling, grammar and sentence structure. Submit your work as an MS Word document (or rich text file) to this assignment drop box

Answer 1

The Evolution of Ethics

A goal implicit in human evolution is survival; thus, humanity directs some of its energy toward creating a state of peace to achieve the necessary efficiency and conservation of energy to survive in a hostile and sometimes unpredictable world.

The foundation of the emergence of rule systems is built upon centuries of reasoned insight and personal experiences that reveal which actions are better than others, which are productive, and which are disruptive and should be avoided. As efficient actions reveal themselves to an evolving society, its people develop the means to make productive choices between one type of action and another. Some choices are decidedly better than others. This prioritizing of human actions into efficient hierarchies establishes the foundations of rule systems which later refine themselves into more sophisticated systems of morals, manners and statutory laws. All these systems have a tendency to address the fundamental need of the human species to survive and avoid the common fate of extinction by conserving energy and directing social attention towards more productive kinds of behavior. It could be said that as civilization approaches the ideal of efficiency, the harmony that follows from efficient and thoughtful actions inspires a state of peace that exponentially increases the chances of human civilization surviving over long periods of time.

Social change has more or less followed the more reasoned logic and experiences of people. Change is not always perfect. However, as people experience more and learn more about their world through formal education, they have more resources by which they can make judgments about the behavior of their fellow humans. Knowledge of the past lends to enlightened minds a knowledge of the future. Common education and experiences inspire the emergence of informal belief systems, clarifying what appears to be acceptable behavior and what is not. Observations that endure centuries of reasoned scrutiny integrate ultimately into the cultural ethic. As a rule of thumb, an action that contributes to the disorganization of society is often considered "wrong" and that which contributes to the organization of society "right." Behaviors that corrupt the peace, prosperity, and productivity of a society are generally discouraged as "wrong," in favor of behaviors which contribute to the well-being of the society and are generally considered "right." In any event, the evolution of rules in complex societies addresses the fundamental impulse of the human species to survive in a world of competing biological systems.

Ethical systems and formal laws together serve to bring order to a world that tends to become disorganized and sometimes violent if ethical views and rules of conduct are not established. Ethical systems that emerge for any given period of historical development may not represent the finest of rules ever conceived, but they are sufficient to hold the growth of humanity in the balance.

Along with the emergence of good rules have evolved many others that were bad. These bad rules evolved from errors, delusions, and self-interest. But over time the good rules that incorporated a keen insight into human relationships have likely endured and have slowly grown into a reasonably consistent set of rules. These rules today are expressed formally and informally in systems of laws, morals, manners, and customs.

Rules spontaneously evolve in every social system, whether it is a group of small-time criminals or highly educated people in a multinational corporation. Rule systems evolve along the lines of an efficiency algorithm that effectively organizes the prevailing state of affairs in small increments of change over long periods of social time. In the beginning of the formation of social systems, rules may not have been as refined as they are today. But rules necessarily existed from the beginning simply to keep volatile passions, immaturity, ignorance, and misunderstanding from inspiring endless fighting and slaughtering of human beings.

Written laws, morals, manners, and customs help synchronize the various parts of an increasingly complex society. Developments in higher education, technology, national politics, or even from natural phenomena, such as extremes in the weather, all affect the destiny of humankind. Some people are slow to see changes in the world, while others are quick. As a result, people's lives operate at different speeds. Moral and legal systems help sustain order in a society where people operate at different levels of sensitivity, understanding, and speed of thinking. Rule systems, on the whole, concern the evolution of sensibility rather than insensibility and self-interest.

Ethics and laws

In simple terms, the law may be understood as the systematic set of universally accepted rules and regulation created by an appropriate authority such as government, which may be regional, national, international, etc. It is used to govern the action and behavior of the members and can be enforced, by imposing penalties.

Many times the term law is juxtaposed with the term ethics, but there is a difference, as ethics are the principles that guide a person or society, created to decide what is good or bad, right or wrong, in a given situation. It regulates a person’s behavior or conduct and helps an individual in living a good life, by applying the moral rules and guidelines.

For a layman, these two terms are same, but the fact is that there is a difference between law and ethics.

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	LAW	ETHICS
Meaning	The law refers to a systematic body of rules that governs the whole society and the actions of its individual members.	Ethics is a branch of moral philosophy that guides people about the basic human conduct.
What is it?	Set of rules and regulations	Set of guidelines
Governed By	Government	Individual, Legal and Professional norms
Expression	Expressed and published in writing.	They are abstract.
Violation	Violation of law is not permissible which may result in punishment like imprisonment or fine or both.	There is no punishment for violation of ethics.
Objective	Law is created with an intent to maintain social order and peace in the society and provide protection to all the citizens.	Ethics are made to help people to decide what is right or wrong and how to act.
Binding	Law has a legal binding.	Ethics do not have a binding nature.