Any of these behaviors may erode the moral foundation of business and make business activity both unreliable and unpredictable. The pursuit of profit has traditionally been viewed as the chief motivation to engage in productive activity. The pursuit of profit cannot be regarded as a morally neutral activity because the receipt of profit income may lead to inequality in the distribution of income between those who are entrepreneurally successful and those who are not or who do not choose to behave in an entrepreneurial fashion. Statistical evidence in support of this contention is found in numerous surveys and polls which indicate that Americans believe that the ethical standards of business are lower than those of American society as a whole. In simplest terms, morality may be defined as what is good or right for human beings.
Ethics involves choices in regard to moral precepts.
Hoffman and Moore identify three ethical orientations which cover most of the positions which can be taken by business decision makers. Ethical relativism is the position that there is no one universal standard or set of standards by which to judge the morality of an action. An ethical relativist may hold the same act to be morally right for one society, but morally wrong for another. A similar distinction may be applied to two individuals within the same society. An ethical relativist may base morality upon social customs and conventions.