Moral choices influence every aspect of our lives. They constitute the foundation of the world's religions, they were taught to us by our parents and are an integral part of our public institutions. Bad moral choices affect us all and bad moral actors are all around us. They are found in our prisons, in our legal and political systems and in our workplaces. Bad actors discriminate, harass, intimidate, and victimize us daily and cause great suffering around the world. In recent decades, the ancient philosophy of virtue ethics, dating back to the days of Aristotle, has returned to the forefront of modern ethical philosophy. We are seeing a renewed interest in this ethical concept and its applicability to the modern workplace. This renewed interest may have come from Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian pastor who hosted Mr. Roger's Neighborhood from 1968 to 2001. Children from three generations — from baby boomers to millennials — regularly watched Mr. Rogers. The concepts they learned arguably fit well within the framework of virtue ethics theory and likely form the basis of how these children developed as individuals and ultimately chose the leadership philosophy that suited them best. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In Managing Business Ethics, we studied three ethical theories: consequentialist theory (the focus is on the outcomes or consequences of the decision or action); deontological theory (the emphasis is on the actor's duty to do what is “right” and just); and focusing on integrity (a virtue ethic that focuses on the integrity and character of the person and not the act itself). For the purposes of this essay, I will focus solely on virtue ethics. I will also write about the connection between virtue ethics and servant leadership. According to Simon Sinek, servant leaders are leaders who focus on the principle that people come first, not numbers, and therefore make the best leaders. The best leaders put others before themselves. Sinek argues that businesses run by servant leaders are the most successful businesses. I would argue that a number of children who watched the Fred Rogers television program may have become servant leaders as a direct result of the virtue ethics that Fred Rogers taught them during their childhood. Virtue ethics focuses “more on integrity.” of the moral actor (the person) than on the moral act itself (the decision or the behavior). The goal is to be a good person because that’s the kind of person you want to be. “There are two fundamental approaches to integrating ethics into business: the action-based approach and the agent-based approach….the agent-based approach concerns the fundamental character and motivations of the individual agent. In the agent-based approach, moral behavior is not limited to adherence to a rule or guideline, but rather involves the individual rationally pursuing moral excellence as a goal in itself. In other words, the individual strives to be a good person, actively engages in steps to become a good person, and develops to become a moral agent, forming relationships with others who are also moral agents, and contributes to an environment that values ​​this concept. of virtue ethics. These actors are committedintentionally in actions designed to habituate the best character traits with the goal that these acts ultimately become the standards that everyone displays. How do we learn virtue ethics? We learn by following good role models. The documentary, Won't You Be My Neighbor, is currently showing in cinemas across the country. This documentary tells the life story of Fred Rogers, bringing this American icon back to the forefront. “‘Radical kindness’ is…what Mr. Rogers practiced…. His gentle, personal manner masked a commitment to bringing love and acceptance to every child…[He] taught children how to be compassionate and kind.[and] that being authentic and true to your principles is far more powerful than any what technology or shortcut. But more importantly, Rogers showed how to be principled without being vehement. He was never negative, but he made it clear that certain beliefs and practices were harmful and misguided. Fred Rogers had a personal value system that falls squarely within the framework of virtue ethics, and he used his television program to teach his values ​​(virtues) to the nation's children for 33 years. Rogers' teachings differed radically from the standard business values ​​of his day. Geoff Moore writes in Humanizing Business that capitalist organizations have long had a tendency toward greed. Moore suggests that this greed stems from the 1930 essay written by the founder of Keynesian economics, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes's essay Economic Opportunities for Our Grandchildren argued that it was necessary to legitimize greed to the extent that economic goals [were] paramount and social goals (or even social considerations) [were] relegated to a lower position. » Keynes's economic principles were representative of how society viewed business practices in the early 20th century; However, the tide was beginning to turn despite Keynes's attempt to encourage the interests of business rather than individuals. Because it was also in the 1930s that Edwin Sutherland, sociologist, gave a speech on the emergence of corporate crime to the American Sociological Society. Sutherland criticized his colleagues for their view that corporate malfeasance did not rise to the level of criminal activity. Although his efforts were ultimately in vain because at that time no one was willing to send "gentlemen" to prison for undefined crimes, Sutherland nevertheless set the stage for future corporate reform. Over the next decades, business laws and regulations developed around the theme of acceptable business practices, and by the 1970s the press was actively publishing articles on corporate misconduct. In the news, there were articles covering the 1972 burglary of the DNC headquarters, political contributions to foreign governments, price fixing, environmental damage, and health and safety violations. American views on corporate wrongdoing were shifting, and consumer rights advocates like Ralph Nader suddenly attracted media attention like never before. The reputations of once-revered business leaders have plummeted. Meanwhile, in the background, Mr. Rogers, who was also a servant leader, was teaching virtue ethics to America's future leaders – his children. Servant leadership has been defined by the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership as “…a philosophy and set of principles. practices that enrich the lives of individuals,build better organizations and, ultimately, create a fairer and more united world. Servant leaders “remove self-interest and self-glory…[and] inspire trust.” [Servant leaders] focus first on the success of [the] organization and…the team. Kouzes and Barry Posner describe five leadership practices that are essential to good leadership in their book The Leadership Challenge. One of these key leadership practices is “leading the way,” arguably one of the core principles of servant leadership. Kouzes and Posner conclude that great leaders model their own value system, i.e. virtue ethics, and in this way, leaders transform the values ​​(virtues) of the company, and therefore the humanize. It is clear that Fred Rogers led the way in every episode he aired, humbly serving as a righteous servant leader and role model to the children who watched his show. As a servant leader, even though he played a non-traditional role using Through Television, Rogers deeply believed that every human being possessed inherent dignity. He used his gifts to lift people up instead of putting them down. Rogers was not afraid to tackle difficult issues like racial discrimination or assassinations. For example, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he televised a skit informing children about the assassination because he recognized the inherent need in children to receive answers to confusing and sometimes ugly situations. Rogers was a courageous leader who believed in speaking out, even when doing so was difficult or unpleasant. Conclusion In this course, we have studied ethics by approaching the subject in different ways. Eugene Soltes attempts to get inside the mind of the white-collar criminal in his book Why They Do It. He devotes a lot of time to the evolution of business regulation over the past 100 years. He points out that business leaders still spend much of their time performing tasks that fall into legal gray areas. He concludes that there are many cases where an act may be legally valid (usually due to the absence of laws or regulations prohibiting it) but nevertheless toes the ethical line. Soltes goes on to describe an individualistic mindset common to the many leaders he has interviewed and presented as case studies. He argues that these individualistic characteristics – self-interest, power-seeking, and excessive emphasis on corporate, personal and financial bottom lines – are perhaps what led to the descent of a citizen executive seemingly law-abiding in a life of corporate crime. Edward O. Wilson, for his part, approaches the subject by studying the evolution of man himself. In The Social Conquest, Wilson details the prehistory and beginnings of humanity, as we became homo sapiens. Wilson theorizes that we became who we are as modern human beings when we achieved eusociality (the true human condition); however, he argues that the early individualistic character traits of pre-humans remain to some extent in modern human DNA. If Wilson is correct, it may be that the business leaders described by Soltes still retain a number of individualistic traits. If this is the case, how can we, as human beings, genetically predisposed to individualistic character traits, achieve a society based on virtue ethics? Aristotle was one of the first to philosophize on the idea that a system based on virtue ethics could lead to a..