Basically, the owner of a good character is moral, acts morally, feels good, is happy and flourishes. Altruism is also part of the character-based virtue ethic. However, practical wisdom is often necessary to be virtuous. 66 Whatever method of selection an undertaking adopts, it should always 1 A Proponents of the interest-based approach argue that the primary function of human rights is to protect and promote certain essential human interests. The protection of people`s essential interests is the main reason why human rights can be morally justified. The interest approach therefore mainly aims to identify the social and biological conditions prior to a minimally good human life. The universality of human rights rests on certain fundamental and indispensable qualities for human well-being that we all necessarily share. Take, for example, the interest that each of us has in terms of personal safety. This interest serves to justify our legal claim.
It may require the exercise of other rights as a precondition for security, such as the satisfaction of basic nutritional needs and the need not to be arbitrarily detained or arrested. The philosopher John Finnis provides a good representative of the theoretical approach to interest. Finnis (1980) argues that human rights are justified because of their instrumental value in ensuring the conditions necessary for human well-being. He identifies seven fundamental interests, or what he calls the «fundamental forms of the human good,» as the foundation of human rights. These are: life and its capacity for development; the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself; Game, such as the ability to recover; aesthetic expression; friendliness and friendship; practical reason, the capacity for intelligent and rational thought processes; and finally religion or the capacity for spiritual experience. According to Finnis, these are the essential preconditions for human well-being and, as such, serve to justify our claims to the corresponding rights, whether of the nature of the right to claim or the right to liberty. The doctrine of human rights has been the subject of various forms of fundamental philosophical criticism. These challenges to the philosophical validity of human rights as a moral doctrine differ from the critical evaluations of the various philosophical theories that support the doctrine, for the simple reason that they seek to show what they perceive to the philosophical errors on which human rights are based. Two of these forms of critical analysis deserve particular attention: one that challenges universalist claims to human rights and the other that calls into question the supposedly objective nature of human rights principles. Thus, at the individual level, principles and values provide a source of stability and self-control, while influencing job satisfaction and performance. At the organizational level, principled and values-based leadership influences the cultures that inspire and motivate ethical behaviour and performance.
The following section explains how ethical leadership at the top and in organizations affects ethical actions and behaviors.21 An easy way to summarize this principle when considering a moral dilemma is to ask questions about a proposed action or decision: (1) Is this fair? (2) Is this correct? (3) Who is injured? (4) Who bears the consequences? (5) Do I/we want to take responsibility for the consequences? It`s interesting to think about how many disasters and corporate crises could have been avoided if leaders and stakeholders had taken these issues seriously before making decisions. For example, the following precautions could have prevented the disaster: upgrading equipment and machinery that failed during the BP and Exxon Valdez oil crises, and investment banks and lenders following the rules of not selling subprime mortgages that could not and would not be paid. measures that led to the near collapse of the world economy. Human rights are rights that bind people and act as moral guarantees in support of our demands for a minimally good life. Conceptually, human rights are themselves a derivative of the concept of law. This section focuses on the philosophical analysis of the notion of «law» in order to clearly show the different components of the concept from which human rights emerge. In order to fully understand both the philosophical foundations of human rights doctrine and the different functioning of different human rights, a detailed analysis is needed. The moral teaching of human rights aims to identify the basic prerequisites for every human being to lead a minimally good life. Human rights aim to identify both the negative and positive conditions necessary for a minimally good life, such as the right to torture and the right to health care. This aspiration has been enshrined in various legal declarations and conventions issued over the past fifty years, initiated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and, above all, by the European Convention on Human Rights (1954) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). Together, these three documents form the core of a moral doctrine that many believe can bring to the current geopolitical order what amounts to an international bill of rights.
However, the doctrine of human rights is not intended to be a comprehensive moral doctrine. An appeal to human rights does not give us a full account of morality itself. Human rights, for example, do not provide us with criteria for answering questions such as whether lies are inherently immoral or what should be the extent of moral obligations to friends and lovers? What human rights primarily seek to identify is the basis for determining the form, content and scope of basic public moral norms.
