Hooker Virtue Ethics Case Study

Introduction: Bernie Madoff was a well-respected financier, his company Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC was very well known and even helped launch the Nasdaq stock market. Madoffs company was well trusted and he even had celebrity cliental such a Steven Spielberg, Kevin bacon, and Kyra Sedgwick. Madoff came from a low income family however, he was able to start his company from getting a $50,000 loan from his in-laws and he using money that he had saved from side jobs such as lifeguarding and installing sprinkler systems to found his company. The successfulness of Madoff’s company came from the company’s ability to adapt to change and us modern day computer technology. As his business grew he stated employing family members to help “His younger brother, Peter, joined him in the business in 1970 and became the firm 's chief compliance officer. Later, Madoff 's sons, Andrew and Mark, also worked for the company as traders. Peter 's daughter, Shana, became a rules-compliance lawyer for the trading division of her uncle 's firm, and his son, Roger, joined the firm before his death in 2006”(Bernard Madoff Biography 2016) Unfortunately on December 11th 2008 Bernie Madoff became well known for a whole new reason. He had been accused of performing an elaborate Ponzi scheme and he had been reported to the federal authorities by his own sons. A year later he admitted to the investigators that he had lost $50 billion dollars of his investors’ money and pled guilty to 11

Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.

Bernie Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, ran one of the biggest schemes in history. Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion dollars from his investors over the course of two decades. He stole money from victims such as Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon, Carl Shapiro, thousands of wealthy retirees, charities, and supposedly sophisticated financial firms. He convinced them to give him their money by falsely promising profits in return. He was caught in December 2008 and pleaded guilty in March 2009. He was charged with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft. He was arrested and is now facing 150 years in prison. The people caught working with him on this scheme were five of his employees , his accountant and

I. Provide answers for five (5) of the following (6 points each, total of 30 points):

9. In March 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to eleven counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft; in June 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. 10. Fraud charges are still pending against David Friehling; he faces a prison sentence of more than 100 years if convicted of those charges. 11. KPMG became the first of the Big Four firms to be sued as a result of the Madoff fraud; the lawsuit alleges that KPMG failed to properly investigate Friehling & Horowitz while auditing the financial statements of a large “feeder firm” in which the plaintiff was an investor. 12. The SEC has announced a series of reforms to prevent or detect future frauds similar to Madoff’s; one proposal is that investment advisers be subjected to annual “surprise audits” to ensure that customer funds are properly safeguarded.

Unethical behavior…sounds bad doesn’t it? But what employee can truly say that he is completely innocent of any unethical behavior in the workplace? Some of the most common unethical business behaviors are fudging work hours, making phone calls on business lines and photo copying of personal paperwork. Simple acts such as these are highly unlikely to have an employee face criminal charges but when the acts of embezzling money or falsifying business records are committed a company is more apt to prosecute. People have different views regarding what is ethical and what is unethical. Some feel that it’s

Luke is in charge of ABC Company’s land development project in building an adult entertainment store on the land they recently purchased. Unfortunately, his brother, Owen, happens to live in the same area. Luke remembers Owen once told him he is thinking about selling his house, since he recently received a decent offer from a real estate firm. However, he is debating whether he should sell it or waits for the real estate to rise. Luke realizes with the appearance of adult entertainment in the near future, the values of Owen’s house and other houses in neighborhood are likely to drop significantly.

We chose Bernard Madoff’s case because we thought that we could relate his case to many unethical behaviors. The analysis can be made on decision making and lack of ethical training which we think is an important topic to focus on this course.

In this case study, Bernie Madoff had been a prosperous and respectable financial specialist to his clientele. His clienteles were gotten just on a welcome only premise due to the fact that he was so successful. Madoff's appeal was that he could get a significant and consistent return on his stakeholder's money and offer sustain and continued growth. He simply moved money around to give the appearance of success. This trick not only fooled the investors, but fooled market insiders and regulators alike. Madoff even sought to only employ inexperienced and uneducated employees, since they were unlikely to discover his misdeeds. Eventually, Madoff's scams reached their end. It was then that Madoff told his sons of the scam and they subsequently

Prostitution is defined by Florida State Statute 796.07 in 1994 as “the giving or receiving of the body for sexual activity for hire but excludes sexual activity between spouses” (“Legal Definition of Prostitution”). Though it has been illegalized, an age old discrepancy dealing with the morality and ethical concepts of prostitution is still a controversial topic being discussed today. The main ethical problem being debated about the profession of prostitution is if the selling of sex, something that is meant to be private and personal, should be allowed and morally accepted within society if used for monetary gain in order to pay for the necessities of life. Some question whether

Enron’s ride is quite a phenomenon: from a regional gas pipeline trader to the largest energy trader in the world, and then back down the hill into bankruptcy and disgrace. As a matter of fact, it took Enron 16 years to go from about $10 billion of assets to $65 billion of assets, and 24 days to go bankruptcy. Enron is also one of the most celebrated business ethics cases in the century. There are so many things that went wrong within the organization, from all personal (prescriptive and psychological approaches), managerial (group norms, reward system, etc.), and organizational (world-class culture) perspectives. This paper will focus on the business ethics issues at Enron that were raised from the documentation Enron: The Smartest Guys

After Bernard Madoff, a former NASDAQ chairman, was arrested on December 11, 2008, he acknowledged that his performance was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. He pled guilty to the biggest investor fraud ever committed by anyone on March 12, 2009. On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Virtue, when I hear that word I think of value and morality and only good people can be virtuous. When I hear the word ethics I think of good versus evil, wrong and right. Now when the two are put together you get virtue ethics. You may wonder what can virtue ethics possibly mean. It’s just two words put together to form some type of fancy theory. Well this paper will discuss virtue ethics and the philosophy behind it.

As stated before no two people are the same, and now two people’s thoughts are the same. But at the end of the day everyone’s views on ethics boils down to knowing right or wrong. For example, if someone were to rob a bank that person knows for a fact that is it wrong and that he may go to jail. There would be no “Maybe it was right for him to rob the bank.” This is the same for FIFA. Allowing bribes to be placed on the next place that should hold the world cup

Ethics is something that is very important to have especially in the business world. Ethics is the unwritten laws or rules defined by human nature; ethics is something people encounter as a child learning the differences between right and wrong. In 2001, Enron was the fifth largest company on the Fortune 500. Enron was also the market leader in energy production, distribution, and trading. However, Enron's unethical accounting practices have left the company in joint chapter 11 bankruptcy. This bankruptcy has caused many problems among many individuals. Enron's employees and retirees are suffering because of the bankruptcy. Wall Street and investors have taken a major downturn do to the company's unethical practices. Enron's competitors