CASE STUDY

Enron Case Study

Enron Case Study

Has the Chief Executive Kenneth Lay acted immorally? Justify your views with ethics and/or CSR theory.

There have been many such comparable incidents that have taken place over the passage of history in which systems have taken over and individuals in disregard think of the past events, with a sense of shock in being able to believe the happening of such an event. The case of Enron is like a proof about the nature of the humans, showing the weakness in the morale in relation to the humans.

Saarinen and Hamalainen (2007) state the fact that it looked like Kenneth Lay had a firm believe on the Christian morals, in the initial years of Enron, acting in a selfless manner, along with representing the good life virtues of the old age, which are believed to carry good for the complete system. Most of these theories related to the virtue ethics have been supposedly inspired by Aristotle, according to whom, a person is supposed to be virtuous if he possesses the ultimate personality qualities. Talking about this thinking of Aristotle in relation to an example, it can be said that a person who possesses a kind nature across different life events and situations over the passage of the life, because of the simple fact that his or her character is reflective of such behavior is supposed to be a virtuous person. His or her behavior is such not because of the fact that he or she has some kind of interest in behaving in such a manner, such as getting favors or maximizing utility or simply performing his or her duty. In relation to the behavior and personality of Kenneth Lay, it can be said that his behavior was such because of the fact that he wanted to build new and broad networks of associations, which would have helped in making him potent (Healy, Paul, et al, 2003, p. 52-55). His behavior was not such because of the fact that he cared about others. The wrong or the right behavior of an individual is what the moral theories are actually concerned with. Consequentialism and Deontology are concerned with the right actions, whereas good life and the character of a person is what virtue ethics is basically concerned with. Consequentialism and Deontology possess rules that direct individuals towards the execution of the correct action; virtue ethics is mainly concerned with central use of the concept of character (Healy, Paul, et al, 2003, p. 52-55).

Living in a virtuous manner and having a virtuous character can be the answer of the question regarding the way in which one should live. The personality characteristic of being kind can be said to be the unique aspect of virtue ethics, when a person has the habit to act in a kind manner, in every kind of a situation, with every kind of an individual, and over a lengthy passage of time, even in times when it is expected to be difficult to be able to ...