Financial Reporting and Ethics - The Institute of Chartered ...

FINANCIAL REPORTING AND ETHICSEthical relativism claims that when two cultures or any twopeople hold different moral views of an action, both can be right.Thus any action can be right for one person, yet wrong for another.For the relativists, there is no universal standard or moral truth.The moral truism of a proposition or action is culture dependent,figure dependent and individual dependent.(e)(f)(g)Psychological Issues in MetaethicsThis section examines the psychological basis of our moraljudgments and conducts. Here we try to understand whatmotivates morality. Why be moral.Ethical Egoism and Altruism17 th Century British Philosophers hold that many, if not all of ouractions are prompted by selfish desires. This is the theory in ethicswhich holds that an action is morally right if the consequencesof that action are more favourable than unfavourable only to theagent performing the action. Ethical Altruism holds that an actionis right only if it is more favourable to others except the agent.Emotion and ReasonThere is a dispute concerning the role of emotion and reason inmotivating moral actions. For instance, does a statement suchas, “abortion is morally wrong,” a rational assessment or anexpression of emotion? On the one side of the dispute, 18 th centuryBritish philosopher David Hume argued that moral assessmentsinvolve our emotions, and not our reason. We can amass all thereasons we want, but that alone will not constitute a moralassessment. We need a distinctly emotional reaction in order tomake a moral pronouncement. Reason might be of service ingiving us the relevant data, but, in Hume’s words, “reason is,and ought to be, the slave of the passions.”Inspired by Hume’s anti-rationalist views, some 20th centuryphilosophers, and most notably A.J. Ayer similarly denied that moralassessments are factual descriptions. For example, although thestatement “it is good to donate to charity” may on the surface look asthough it is a factual description about charity, it is not. Instead, a moralutterance like this involves two things. First, I (the speaker) amexpressing my personal feelings of approval about charitable donationsand I am in essence saying “Hooray for charity!” This is called theemotive element insofar as I am expressing my emotions about somespecific behaviour.120