Research Of Influence Of Buddhist Ethics To Individual Moral Decision Making In Business

In recent years, a great number of ethical scandals have happenedto even very famous enterprises. Therefore the central governmentbegan to promote those excellent traditional Chinese culture. Andaccordingly, some managers introduced Buddhist ethics to boththemselves and their companies, and some good results are said to haveappeared. In this paper, based on Jones’s individual moral decisionmaking model, the influence of Buddhist ethics to individual moraldecision making will be explored.In this paper, firstly the research background is introduced; andsecondly, the literature about Buddhist ethics, individual moraldecision making models and the influence of religion to individualmoral decision making are reviewed; thirdly, based on Jones’sindividual moral decision making model, the influence of Buddhistethics to the recognition of ethical issues, ethical strength, moraljudgment, moral intent and moral behavior is discussed, and thefollowing hypotheses are proposed:Buddhist ethics helps to increase the moral strength; Buddhistethics also helps to increase the possibility for the moral agent torecognize moral issues; in moral judgment, Buddhist ethics helps the moral agent to use the highest stage of cognitive moral development;Buddhist ethics helps the moral agent to establish the moral intent;Buddhist ethics helps the moral agent to implement ethical behavior.Finally, these hypotheses are tested through a case study, andmeanwhile, three new hypotheses are proposed:An action itself is ethically neither good nor bad, the same actioncan be good or bad according to its utility to realize or hamper therealization of the aims of those the action acts on; according toBuddhist ethics, the moral agent can always explain the action done tohim as ethically good for the realization of the ultimate religious aim;according to Buddhist ethics, the moral agent always treat those whoacts ethically toward them according to Buddhist norms.