MSC Assignment – 1
Wajeeha Muzaffar
Ethics in real life
- Corruption; it’s occurrence and impact • Definitions
o Ethics: moral principles that govern a person's behaviour
o Corruption: fraudulent conduct by those in power
o Power: ability to influence the behaviour of others or the course of events
o Public sector: part of an economy that is controlled by the state
o Private sector: part of the national economy that isn’t under direct state control
o Bribery: persuade someone to act in one's favour by an inducement
o Extortion: the practice of obtaining something through force threats
o Nepotism: use of personal power to grant favours to relatives
• Classes of corruption
o
Petty Corruption
- Everyday abuse of entrusted power by public officials in their interactions with ordinary
citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals,
schools, police departments and other agencies
o
Grand corruption
- The abuse of high-level power that benefits the few at the expense of the many; a
systematic or well-organised plan of action involving high-level public officials that
causes serious harm, such as gross human rights violations
• Transparency international corrupt index
o
Collects data from 13 different data sources from 12 different institutions
o
Produces reliable information on perceptions of corruption in the public sector
o
Can not reflect full extent of the problem as private sector is not involved
• Causes of corruption (4)
o
Personal and cultural; corruption is mainly caused by greed and personal benefit, a party
is therefore formed where all support one another, and isn’t controlled or punished
o
Organisational and institutional; corruption occurs due to lack of leadership, lack of role
models in the key positions and unwillingness to tackle small problems on time until
they turn out to be grave
•
Impacts of corruption
o
Society: merit is violated, employment rates fall, economy becomes unstable, destroys
youths’ ambitions, future, careers and creates less prosperity & more poverty
o
Law: the guilty roam freely and the innocent are robbed of their lives. Citizens’ safety is
no longer guaranteed. No one receives justice, life is unfair
o
Politics: unworthy authorities may gain control, tax money is misused and the society’s
functionality wreaks havoc