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agreed basis 
for decision-making. 
Effective 
legal systems 
are certain in their effects on the individual. While the complexity of such 
matters as tax law can make it difficult to determine just what the law says in any given case, it is still 
possible to determine the issue in court. Once the law is decided it is definite and there is little scope for 
argument.
The 
certainty of legal rules 
does not exist in ethical theory. Different ideas apply in different cultures. 
The two main important ideas in the Western ethical tradition are 
duty
and 
consequences
. 
3.2 Ethics based on consequences 
This approach judges actions by reference to their outcomes or consequences. 
Utilitarianism
, 
propounded by Jeremy Bentham (1823), is the best-known version of this approach and can be 
summed up as choosing the action that is likely to result in the 
greatest good for the greatest number of 
people
.
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PART F: PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS 
 
482
 
3.2.1 Egoism 
Egoism
states that an act is ethically justified if decision makers freely decide to pursue their own short-
term desires or their long-term interests. The subject to all ethical decisions is the self. 
It has been argued that an egoistic pursuit of individual self-interest produces a desired outcome for 
society through 
free competition and perfect information
operating in the marketplace. Producers of 
goods, for example, have to offer value for money, since competition means that customers will buy 
from competitors if they don't. Egoism can also link in with enlightened self-interest, such as a business 
investing in good facilities for its workforce to keep them content and hence maintain their loyalty. 
3.2.2 Criticisms of egoism 
One criticism of pure egoism is that it makes short-term selfish desires equivalent to longer-term, more 
beneficial, interests. A modified view would give most validity to exercising those short-term desires that 
were in long-term interests. A more serious criticism has been that the markets do not function perfectly, 
and that some participants can benefit themselves at the expense of others and also the wider 
environment – that it is unsustainable. Most fundamentally egoism is argued to be the