A Preliminary Study of Organizational Ethics: “Complementary Relationships in Society” and Conceptual Examination of Morality and Ethics

Since the second half of the 20th century, especially for the past 10 years, the field so-called “applied ethics” has been widely studied. The reason why this field began to draw more attention is probably because of the issues related to the four topics, that is, “environment”, “life”, “information”, as well as “corporate enterprises”. However, the name “applied ethics” is, frankly speaking, somewhat vague to define what is really studied in the field. Ethics and morality are “events” with fundamental meanings associated with the actuality of human life. Thus, while we must admit its “practical aspects or areas”, the issues pertaining to “environment”, “life”, “information” and “corporate enterprises” are more like “material aspects or areas” in which we think about ethics or morality. In this sense, this area of study should be called “new ethics” rather than “applied ethics”. 　In the contemporary society, ethical issues pertaining to these aspects are mutually affecting each other to a great extent. Environmental ethics, bioethics and information ethics should be discussed from the perspective of how they are related to ethical issues in corporate enterprises, although talking about these areas outside of such context may not be always meaningless. On the other hand, discussions about corporate enterprise ethics, or business ethics would always have to include ethical issues pertaining to environment, life and information. Ethical issues pertaining to corporate enterprises, which is my main focus of study, need to be studied by focusing on science, technology and organizations, because while companies manage businesses to meet the needs in the society, such businesses are the application of science and technology and management is an organizational activity. Values toward businesses establish positions regarding science and technology, and vice versa. Those values and positions will take on organizational nature rather than personal nature. Ethical issues pertaining to corporate enterprises, or corporate enterprises managing businesses take on organizational nature in this sense. However, as management, an organizational activity by the concerned corporate enterprise, consists of multiple individual activities, we must also consider “possible conflicts between an individual and his organization” which is inevitable in discussing these ethical issues. 　As a preliminary study for the research to re-structure issues of business ethics and management ethics as organizational ethics, this article aims to examine moral and ethical concepts and clarify how morality and ethics are different from each other as well as how they are related to each other（ III. Moral and ethical challenges in the organizational society and conceptual examination of the distinction and relationship of morality and ethics）, by considering the aforementioned points as well as possible “conflicts between an individual and his organization”. The following two points are discussed in this article: as managing a business by a corporate enterprise is one of the social complements which are done within the organizational relationship or network with other systems or entities to improve human life, I first discuss （ 1 ） “complementary relationships in society”, and then, （ 2 ） examine how morality and ethics are positioned in the context as the “topology of moral and ethical issues in the organizational society”. Discussing these two points will lead us to the discussion of “moral and ethical challenged in the organizational society” and set up a background for the purpose of this article.