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CH 6] Business 101 6-7

anyone else?
It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may
sometimes be mistaken about this, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but
this is not a mere matter of taste or opinion any more than the multiplication tables.
Engaging Ethical Behavior
Considering the ordinary human being, none of us are really keeping the Law of
Nature. Do not misunderstand this point as it is not preaching. Rather, pay attention to
the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to
practise ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people. There may be all
sorts of rationalizations for us to use that excuses our behavior and not the person who
has aggrieved us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were
tired. That slightly shady business about the money—the one you have almost
forgotten—came when you were very short on funds. Taking a test or quiz that you
had not properly prepared for so you decided to refer to a fellow classmate’s answers
as you and he took the test. And what you promised to do for someone, and besides,
you never would have promised if you had known how terribly busy you were going
to be. That behavior to your wife or husband, or sister or brother, if we only knew how
irritating they could be, we would not wonder at it. We are all the same, which is to
say, we do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well; and when we are
reminded of our own shortcomings we set about developing a string of rationalizations
as long as the day to excuse our actions. The question at the moment is not whether
they are good rationalizations or excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of
how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in this Law of Nature, Human
Nature. The customer is
This one law, the Law of Nature, we regularly disregard because we CAN as it is a always right is a phrase
matter of our will; but those other laws, such as gravity or biology cannot be pioneered by Harry Gordon
disregarded. In business, when this law is disregarded it is a disaster for the firm. You Selfridge , John
may have heard that “the customer is always right.” The reality is that the customer Wanamaker and Marshall
Field. These men were
may not be ‘always right’. But in business we want to treat the customer as though successful retailers and
they are, with no exceptions. This does not mean the firm does not stop theft, for they learned early in their
do. Rather it is the firm, its employees who act better than the customers, with more careers that the success of
honesty and greater integrity. their stores depended on 6
the happiness of their
SOME OBJECTIONS customers.
At this juncture you will need to make a connection of the Law of Nature as the
Law of Human Nature, a Moral Law, as the basis for these Rules of Decent Behavior
that are expressed as ethical behavior. That these are a natural and something you’re
born with, that all peoples possess, and our culture reinforces through our teaching and
re-teaching.
There are some people who will say, “Isn’t what you refer to as the Law of
Human Nature just our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other
instincts?” The herd instinct is not being discussed as it does not relate to morality
(Law of Nature) which is expressed in our ethics. We all know what it feels like to be
prompted by instinct—by mother’s love, or libido, or the instinct for food. It means
that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. Of course, we sometimes
do feel just that sort of desire to help another person; and no doubt that desire is due to
the herd instinct. But, feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling you should
help whether you want to or not. Suppose you hear cries for help from a man in
danger. You’ll probably feel two desires—one, a desire to give help (due to your herd
instinct), the other, a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-
preservation). You will also find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third
thing which tells you that you should follow the impulse to help, and suppress the
impulse to run away. This thing that judges between two instincts, then decides which
should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the
sheet of music which tells you, at any given moment, to play one note on the piano and
not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune
we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.
Another way of thinking about Moral Law as one of our instincts, we should be
able to point to some one impulse inside us which was always what we call “good,”

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