What is Bribery and Corruption
The word bribery is a late Middle English term and comes from the French word brimber meaning ‘beg.’ The original sense of the word was rob or extort. Bribery can thus be defined as the act of bestowing money and presents to a person in order to persuade the person to do something in one’s favour. Corruption refers to dishonest, illegal or fraudulent behaviour, typically involving bribery especially by people in authority. Ethic refers to the principles that govern an individual’s behaviour (Grace & Cohen, 2017). Bribery or corruption is both ethically and morally wrong. Indulging in bribery or corruption is unethical because it consists of dishonest and fraudulent behaviour. Bribery entails a conscious decision to give money or presents to someone in return for a favour and corruption entails being dishonest and indulging in dishonest and unethical practices and fraudulent behaviour. Thus, both bribery and corruption are against ethics as it is morally dishonest to engage in both bribery and corruption (Grace & Cohen, 2015)
Some practices such as polygamy and sexism are acceptable in some societies and opposed and condemned in others. These differences of moral practice across cultures has given rise to the thought of ethical relativism.
According to the theory of ethical relativism, the morality of a person depends on the culture of society where a person resides. Whether an action is morally right or not depends on the societal norms where it is practiced (Grace & Cohen, 2015). Most people who are ethicists do not believe in the theory of ethical relativism because they feel that while the moral practices of societies might be different from one another, the intention behind these moral practices are the same. Also, some moral beliefs are culturally relative while other moral beliefs are not, an example being, the dress code of a particular culture depends on the moral and societal values of that culture. Other philosophers refuse to believe in ethical relativism because they feel that if the morality of an action depends on societal norms, then it is expected from a person that he or she must follow the norms of society and not following the norms of society would mean acting immorally. This implies that if one belongs to a society where sexism and racism prevails, then it is expected that one must follow the sexist and racist practices of society. While following sexist and racist practices in society may lead to a person conforming to societal rules, it would not lead to moral reform or improvement in a society.
Bribery and corruption cannot be justified using ethical relativism. Bribery and corruption cannot be seen as a part of a nation’s culture because no culture supports dishonest behaviour like bribery and corruption. If bribery and corruption were seen as a part of a nation’s culture then every culture would rot and be obliterated because the basis of any culture cannot be based on dishonesty. Dishonesty in any form cannot hold a culture together and it is bound to perish. If dishonest and fraudulent behaviour like bribery and corruption is considered to be a part of a nation’s culture, there would be widespread atrocity where corruption will reign supreme. Bribery and corruption cannot be justified in any culture or any society. No culture propagates bribery and corruption in any form as it eats away the very fabric of society (Dimant & Schulte, 2016).
Ethical Relativism
Consequentialism is based on the idea that of all the actions that a person might do, the one with the best overall consequence is the morally right action. There are two underlying principles of Consequentialism. According to those principles, whether an act is right or wrong is determined by the consequences of that act and secondly, the more positive results that the act produces, the more good the act is. When faced with a moral dilemma, a person ought to do that thing which results in maximum good. The objective of individuals ought always to be the maximization of good results and consequences. There are two types of consequentialism. They are Utilitarianism and Hedonism. According to Utilitarianism, a person should maximize human welfare or human well-being which they would call utility and hence the term utilitarianism. According to Hedonism, people should maximize human pleasure and gratify one’s senses.
Utilitarianism is a form of result-based ethics. According to the principle of Utilitarianism, the act, which produces the happiness to people should be followed.
Bribery and corruption are both dishonest acts that lead to no good and hence should be avoided at all costs. The consequences or results of bribery and corruption are never good in the end and hence bribery, corruption and any other fraudulent and dishonest behaviour should be avoided at all costs.
The origin of the word deontology comes from the Greek word Deon that implies duty. Deontological ethics or deontology refers to the thought that the morality of an action is based on rules. Deontology is also known as rule based ethics. According to Deontology, action is more important than the consequences. There are various forms of deontological theories, examples being Kantianism and Divine Command Theory.
Immanuel Kant in his theory of ethics known as Kantianism, argues that to act in the right way, a person should act from a sense of duty. Secondly, Kant believed that it is the motive of a person doing an action that matters that makes an action right or wrong, rather than the consequences of the action. According to Immanuel Kant, a good will is truly good and the good will is only good when a person does something out of a sense of duty, out of respect for the law. Kant also believed that the rightness of an action depends on the will of the person. If an individual’s motives are wrong, then the action is wrong even if something good comes out of the action (Guyer, 2014).
The Divine Command Theory states that an act is right if God Almighty considers it right. Divine Command Theory differs from Kantianism in the sense that the Divine Command Theory states that the moral law is made universal by God whereas according to Kantianism the moral law is made universal by man (Al-Attar, 2015).
Both Divine Command Theory and Kantianism condone bribery and corruption because it is a dishonest fraudulent behaviour and God cannot preach bribery and corruption. In both corruption and bribery, the motive of the person is not right, hence the consequence of his action can never be right. Also, both corruption and bribery is against the law and does not stem from a sense of duty, and hence cannot be good (Al-Attar, 2015).
Consequentialism and Bribery/Corruption
Virtue ethics emphasizes the virtues of a person, in contrast to duties and rules (deontology) or consequences of action (consequentialism). For example, if a person needs to be helped, a person following consequentialism will help because it will maximize well being, and a person following deontology will help because of the divine rule that says “Do unto others as you would be done by”, but a person following virtue ethics will help simply because helping the person would be humane and benevolent. Both bribery and corruption goes against virtue ethics because neither bribery or corruption or dishonesty in any form is a virtue. Rather they are all vices and should be vehemently avoided.
A manager can never justify using bribery and practicing corruption for securing contracts when working in developing countries overseas or for ensuring that business transactions occur in a timely fashion, because bribery and corruption is not an accepted practice in any country whether it is a developed country or a developing country. No culture promotes propagates or teaches corruption and bribery. It is only some individuals who resort to bribery and corruption in their dealings with people.
On 18th October 1999, Australia gave a formal consent to the Anti-Bribery Convention. Under the Anti-Bribery Convention, Australia has taken numerous steps to criminalize bribery and corruption of foreign public officials, enhancing whistle-blower protection laws and adopting other conventions of the United Nations against money laundering, organized criminal activity and corruption. Australia also funds anti-corruption programs in the Asia – Pacific region. Australia has also founded the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre to combat bribery and corruption, and spreading awareness that foreign bribery will not be tolerated under any cost and all suspicious activity and conduct to be thoroughly investigated. New false-accounting laws were introduced into the Criminal Code in March 2016 (Brown & Lawrence, 2017)
India on the other hand, unlike Australia criminalizes the offense of bribery and does not allow the acceptance of bribes by foreign officials. If a person is found guilty then he is imprisoned for seven years (Pandey, 2015). India is one of hundred and seventy-six countries under the UN Convention Against Corruption and penalizes the bribery of foreign officials. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was established in 1977 by the government of India amidst widespread reports of bribery of foreign officials by several companies of The United States of America. (Brown & Lawrence, 2017) The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which was intended to prevent this kind of corrupt practices broadly consists of Anti-Bribery Provisions, Record Keeping and Internal Controls. The U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is against paying bribes in any foreign country, including The United States of America (Brown & Lawrence, 2017).
Bribery and corruption can never be ethical under any circumstances. Bribery and corruption are dishonest fraudulent practices and can never be ethical. The very basis of bribery and corruption is dishonesty, lack of integrity and nothing good can ever come out of something that is entrenched in dishonesty, lies, deception and falsehood. Instead of indulging in bribery, one can request another person for a favour. Paying someone money in order to get something done is extremely unethical and dishonest. Corruption in any form is also unethical and dishonest. Engaging in any kind of corruption or fraudulent behaviour is extremely bad. Corruption and bribery hinders progress and also hinders the growth and development of a nation. Corruption and bribery also impedes a nation’s progress in all fields. Thus bribery and corruption should be avoided at all costs and a person found guilty of bribery, corruption and other unethical behaviour should be severely punished.
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