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“The practical importance of beauty in various spheres holds crucial significance”. Explain.
Introduction
The phrase refers to the outward beauty of a person. We must realize that a person can be beautiful on the inside. Such a person in often referred to as a ‘lovely’ person. However, when we refer to something beautiful we are usually referring to that something’s outward appearance. What the phrase tries to emphasize that the outward appearance of a person counts for nothing, but it is what lays beneath the skin, the actual person him or herself is what really matters. So it means that it should not matter what you look like on the outside, the real beauty is in the personality.
Historical View of Beauty
Since the Renaissance, harmony, symmetry and correct proportions are considered essential elements of universal beauty. There is an evidence that a preference for beautiful face emerges early in the child development and the standards of attractiveness are similar across different genders and culture. A study published in 2008 suggests that symmetry is also important because it suggests the absence of genetic or acquired defects
Although style and fashion vary widely, cross-cultural research has found a variety of similarities in people’s perception of beauty. The earliest western theory of beauty can be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean School saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. Ancient Greek architecture is based on this view of symmetry and proportion. Plato considered beauty to be the idea (form) above all other ideas. Aristotle saw a relationship between the beautiful and virtue, arguing that “virtue aims at the beautiful”the gothic period as irrational and barbarian. And this view over gothic art lasted until 19th century.
The age of reason saw a rise in an interest in beauty as philosophical subject. For example, the Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson argued that beauty is “Unity in Variety and Variety in Unity”. The romantic poet John Keats arguing in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” that “beauty is truth, truth is beauty”. The 20th century saw an increasing rejection of beauty by artists and philosophers alike culminating in post modernism’s anti-aesthetics. In the aftermath of postmodernism’s rejection of beauty, thinkers have returned to beauty as an important value. American analytic philosopher Guy Sircello proposed his new theory of beauty as an effort to reaffirm the status of beauty as an important philosophical concept. Elaine Scarry also argues that beauty is related to justice.
The Role of Ethical Theory
Ethical theories are the rules and principals that determine right and wrong for any given situation, by normative ethical theories means that theories which proposed to prescribe the morally correct way of acting, on the other hand, descriptive ethical theories seek to describe how ethics decisions actually made in business, there are two extreme position in case of ethical theory: Ethical absolutism, Ethical relativism. Ethical absolutism claims there are eternal, universally applicable moral principles. It suggests that right and wrong are objective qualities that can be rationally determined. Traditional ethical theories support this position. Ethical relativism claim morality is context dependent and subjective. This suggests that, there is no universal right and wrong that can be rationally determined. Contemporary ethical theories support this position Traditional theories offer a certain rule or principle which one can apply to any given situation. These theories can be divided into two groups:
1) Non consequential ethics. 2) Consequential ethics. Consequential ethics can be divided into two groups: Egoism, Utilitarianism. According to the theory of egoism an action is morally right if the decision maker freely decides in order to peruse either their short term desires to their long term interest. On the other hand according to utilitism an action is morally right if it results the in the greatest amount of goods for the greatest amount of people affected by the action.
Contemporary ethical theories include three types of theories: 1) Virtue ethics, 2) Feminist ethics, 3) Discourse ethics. Virtue ethics contends that morally correct actions are those undertaken by actors with virtuous characters. Feminist ethics is an approach that prioritizes empathy, harmonious and healthy social relationship, and care for one another and avoidance of harm above abstract principles. Discourses ethics aims to solve ethical conflict by providing a process of non generation through rational reflection on the real life experience of all relevant participants. Mr. Kant develops a theory on ethics of duties which is known as categorical imperative. It has three components: Consistence, Human dignity, Universality. Consistency means act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law, human dignity means act so that we can treat humanity always as an end and never as a means only. Finally, universality means that they act only so that they would regard itself as universally lawgiving.
Decision making in business ethics is very crucial. There are some stages in ethical decision making. Jones model provide the most comprehensive model of ethical decision making which suggest that individuals move through a process whereby they: a) Recognize a moral issue, b) Make moral judgment about that issue, 3) Establish an intention to act upon that judgment, 4) Finally act according to their intention. This model distinguishes between knowing “what is the right thing to do” and “actually doing something about it”. The role of normative theory is the stage of ethical decision making is primarily in relation to moral judgment. However the issue of whether and how normative theory is used by an individual decision maker depends on a range of different factors that influence the decision making process. We can divide these factors into two broad categories: 1) Individual factors 2) Situational factors: Individual factors refer the unique characteristics of the individual actually making the relevant decision, this includes factors which are given by birth and those acquired by
Experience and Socialization: Which can be divided into four major groups: 1) Age and gender, 2) National and cultural characteristics, 3) Education and employment, 4) Psychological factors. Situational factors means that those factors which rises from the situation and play a vital role in decision making. These factors can be differentiated in two groups: a) Issue related factors; b) Context related factors. Issue related factors include moral intensity and moral framing, whereas context related factors includes system of rewards, authority and bureaucracy. So, all these factors have a very significant role in decision making.
Ethics in Business
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principal and moral or ethical problem that arise in a business environment it applies to all aspect of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individual and entire organization. The emergence of large corporation with limited relationship and sensitivity to the communities accelerated the development of formal ethics regimes. This ethical regime includes a wide range of discipline such as finance, human resource management trade union, management strategy, sales and marketing, production, property, natural right, social construction, intellectual property rights etc. It is the moral obligation of all business entities to maintain their rules, regulation and laws that are provided by the regulatory bodies. And they become successful to maintain this standard, we call them ethically sound business house, but when they fail to do this then we can say that they are violating their commitment to their customers or to the stake holder. Now a day it has become very common that service providing institution fails to maintain their business principles due to profit motivation. If we consider the case of financial institution then we think that all these should abide by rules and regulations in case of taking money from the public and also disbursing this money to their intended borrower. When this financial institution over look rules and regulation then they become involved in unethical activities which causes crisis in the financial sector if we consider a recent scam of Hallmark group then we can understand how the unethical activities result in a crisis. The Hallmark group borrowed tk.2600 crore from the Ruposhi Bangla branch of Sanali Bank Limited without submitting proper security mortgage and documents. In that case some of the dishonest officers of Sanali Bank helped the group to get the loan without submitting the mandatory documents which is unethical practice of banking and it causes a great crisis in the banking industry especially in case of the Sate-own bank
Fairness in human resource management is also a requirement of ethical practice when different companies recruit their employs then they have to set up some standard on which they will be hired more over they should have specific performance appraisal, training and development program, health and safety issue and work place safety. But if we consider the case of RMG sector of Bangladesh then a substantial number of factories have maintained this standard. Although there is a specific direction.
From the government and other pressure groups, civil society they have little interest on it to implement. This is also clear evidence of unethical practice in business.
Ethics is equally important in case of marketing. Ethics becomes important in case of marketing at the end of 1990s. It is the responsibility of marketer or salesman to inform customers with all kind information that concern with them such as product ingredients, pricing policy, product location, distribution channel and other related issues but sometimes the marketer or salesman try to avoid customers to give information to the customer or want to hide the bad or negative qualities of the product to the customer. If we consider the case of fast-food item then we will see that they want to disclose those qualities that attract the young customer, but they have less interest in disclosing the negative side of their product. For example there is some complain against the world famous fast-food brand Mc Donald’s that by taking their food items, people becomes fat very quickly. And for these customers generally blame that their food contains high calorie. But Mc Donald’s merely agree with this matter.
On the other hand, the firm which is very much strict to their quality assurance they become very popular and sustain for a long time in the industry. Quality assurance refers to the planned and systematic activities implemented in a quality system, so that quality requirements for a product or service will be fulfilled, It is the systematic measurement, comparison with a standard monitoring of process and an associated feedback loop that confers error prevention. Sustainable quality is determined by product user, client or customer. There are some companies or manufacturer which is very much strict to uphold their quality and there by ethical practice such as: Uniliver, IBM, General Motors, HP, KFC etc. As a result they also become successful in the market for a good ethical practice. As we discuss about theoretical aspects of the topic that the outward appearance of commodity is temporary .One may attract to commodity at a fast look for once or twice but when he understood that the commodity is substandard then he will never do it again. So if any company wants to take position in a customer mind for a long time they have to strictly maintain their quality or attributes otherwise they will struggle to survive in the market. So according to the theory of ethics all firms should maintain ethical issues strictly otherwise the phrase “Beauty is skin deep” will be a true story for them
Real Life Example
Here we will try to analysis some law, act that are designed for the well being of the people of Bangladesh which are in line with our national constitution. Although they are clearly defined but in reality they have rare use or even in use it is very limited. The protection of consumer right is a global agenda. Bangladesh has also enacted “Consumer Rights Protection Act, 2009” to deal with the consumer affairs. The law is an addition to a number of around 61 relevant laws. But the scenario is very poor because legal protection to the consumer in Bangladesh is not adequate from the very beginning. Customers have very few information regarding their product. As a result they often cheated by the sellers and as the laws related this legal protection, are rarely active they cannot receive quick solution on this regard.
Now we will discuss the issue of the indigenous people in our country. There are more or less 45 recognized indigenous communities in Bangladesh. According to our constitution all people are equal in the eyes of state regardless of their race, religion, color. But our indigenous people are deprived from all the citizen rights. Often they are attracted by the miscreant. For example we can say that incident of the
Attack on the Buddhist’s in Ramu. Still the Government has not found the guilty. And which is not desirable.
We can bring the issue of “Destiny Group” this group is known as a multilevel marketing company and their inception was in the aim of selling of different consumer product. Initially they were involved in selling consumer product, but later they became engaged in various illegal activities such as: illegal banking, tree plantation, media business, aviation business etc. At the same time the goods they sale are substandard, which hampers the interest of consumer. The seller or marketer of this group tempts customers to buy their product and also hide the negative sides of their products. So the customers are cheated by using their product.
Ultimately those firms who are strict to maintain their quality, sustain in the competitive market for a long time and whose are very much unaware about their qualities, lose their market in a very short term.
Primary source and secondary source
1) Primary Source: Primary data was collected by conducting a sample survey on 50 people studying in four different universities. They are Brac University, Dhaka University, AIUB and North South University.
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2) Secondary Source: Secondary data and information was collected through:
Ø Journals
Ø Internet
Ø Booklets, Newspapers.
Data Presentation and Analysis
Q.1) Do you think beauty is a vital factor in our daily lives?
From the above graph it is clear that the people show mixed reaction when we ask them, Is beauty a vital factor? 20% people give positive answer that beauty is a vital factor. 64% give negative answer saying that beauty is not a vital issue in daily life. 11% people remain indifferent about this. And 5% people have answered that they have no comments about this. So it is clear that most of the people seem that beauty is not a big factor in daily life.
Q.2) Do you think there is any discrimination on the basis of beauty?
From the above pie chart we observe that 58% people have given opinion that they do not face any kind of discrimination on the basis of beauty. 26% people has given vote positively that they face discrimination on the basis of beauty. 7% people said that they are indifferent about this proposition. 9% people have no comment about this.
Q.3) what is you priority before buying commodity?
Form the above graph we can observe that 35% people think that outlook is very important in case of buying commodity and 45% participant think that quality is most important in case of buying any commodity or goods. 14% people think that country of origin is very important and rest of the people, that is 6% think that others issues are very important. So from the above analysis it clears that most people give priority in quality.
Q.4) Do you judge someone or something by first look?
From the above diagram we can observe that 27% participant think that they judge someone or something from the basis of first look. 52% think that they do not judge anyone or anything on the basis of first look. 17% people show that they have indifference about this matter and 4% people have no comments about this.
Q.5) which brand do you think sustain in the market in the long run?
From the above diagram we can say that 12% participant think that the brands which have good outward look will sustain in the long run. 57% participant think that quality is the main factor that will help the brand to sustain in the long run and 20% propel think that advertisement and promotional activities will help the company to sustain in the long run. Finally 11% people think that other issue will help them to dominate in the long run.
In the context of this graphical analysis we can say that beauty or outward appearance is temporary. People weight quality over the outward appearance. So the people or commodity which has the better quality will sustain in all kinds of situation.
Remedial Measure
As we have discussed the issue of ethics in manufacturing sector, this issue is very important for the long run sustainability of any corporate firm. As everybody weights ethical issues over unethical practice, so every firm have to put emphasize in keeping ethical standard with other competitors. If they fail to continue their quality they will face difficulties to capture market. So it is highly recommended that all firms should maintain rules and regulation that are given by the government or regulatory body. At the ame time they have also followed their commitment that they do before the customer. If they can do this, I think it would be possible for them to uphold the ethics in their business.
Conclusion
“Beauty is skin deep” is a very meaningful phrase that suggests that someone or somebody can be beautiful on the outside mean or unpleasant on the inside. This is equally true for all kind of commodities. Generally when we go to the market to purchase something then we give priority on internal qualities. Someone also primarily put emphasis on the external appearance but when they are coming to know that the external appearance is not significant, and then they realize that the intrinsic quality is the main foundation of long term sustainability of commodity.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_ethics
The Daily Star, 22/10/2012
Sample survey on 50 students from various campuses.
The Constitution of Bangladesh
Appendix
Questionnaire
Q.1) Do you think beauty is the vital factor in our daily lives?
· Yes
· No
· No comments
· Indifferent
Q.2) Do you think there is any discrimination on the basis of beauty?
· Yes
· No
· Indifferent
· No comments
Q.3) what is you priority before buying commodities?
· Outlook
· Quality
· Country of origin
· Others
Q.4) Do you judge something or someone by first look?
· Yes
· No
· Indifferent
· No comments
Q.5) Which brand do you think would sustain in the market in long run?
· Outward look
· Quality
· Advertisement and promotional activities
· Others