Reverse Moral Justification:

❖ Moral Judgement (E): In the Satyam Scandal, the first problem that Mr Raju faced was not
achieving the analysts’ expectations in one quarter. This was relatively a small problem, that
Satyam Computers Ltd could have easily solved by stating the facts and working towards
achieving their projections in the next one. But, the solution adopted by My Raju, along with his
accomplices was to project wrong figures. This has caused severe harm to the IT industry in
India, the shareholders and the nation as a whole.
❖ Moral rules (D): Mr Raju has resorted to inflating the figures over 8 years. The result was the
inflated valuation of his company, the unearned recognitions he received etc. His aim was just to
boost himself and his company but the ill effects were spread throughout the industry, people and
nation as a whole. Hence, we can come to a conclusion that the solution that he has chosen indeed
was detrimental to everything that was related to it. As per the reason cited above, moral
judgement in this situation is justified.
❖ Moral Standards (C): Meeting the stakeholders’ expectation is a company’s and its boards’
primary responsibility. When Satyam could not achieve this, the right thing to do was to report
the correct figures and finding out where the shortcomings were, and formulate a method to
achieve the figures. But all these was perceived difficult. Mr. Raju took the easier, faster cure i.e.
overstated assets, non-existent cash, and under reported liabilities in the balance sheet. What he
did not account was how all these will lead him back to the same situation, but this time, much
worse that he put the whole system in a shock and himself, ended up in jail. Hence, the four moral
standards, i. e. teleological, deontological, distributive justice and virtue ethics justifies the moral
judgment.
❖ Moral Principles (B): In Satyam’s case the collapse of the company, that is its share price fell
from Rs. 544/- in March 2008 to Rs. 12/- in Jan 2009. The cause of this collapse dates back to the
actions which happened in early 2000s. Another angle to view this issue is how the analysts’ and
stakeholders’ have missed the sources of profits that were reported for close to a decade. They
have seen the end point, high growth and assumed the cause is company’s high performance,
when we look at all this, we can understand that Mr Raju has knowingly did everything wrong for
8 plus years. He knew that community will be affected at large. This can never be in sync with
moral principles.
❖ Moral Theories (A): Mr Raju has conveniently forgotten to evaluate the effects to the system
while he committed the fraud. The analysis of benefits and costs were wrong, he forgot his and
his company’s duties and to all these, he found illegal ways. All of these points to the fact that the
moral theories eventually justify the moral judgement.
❖ Learning: Now that we have discussed about moral rules, moral standards, moral principles and
moral theories, we could easily say the moral justification is based in the 5 sets of beliefs and
values.
Forward Moral Justification:

❖ Moral Theories: As we have discussed upon, the theories, i.e teleological, deontological,
distributive justice, corrective justice, and virtue ethics are able to throw light into the problem.
Mr Ramalingaraju did not measure the implication in others while doing business. They followed
unethical and illegal ways to run the business.
❖ Moral Principles: While we were discussing reverse moral justification, the four moral
principles have elaborated on Mr Ramalingaraju and Satyam Computers. We have also seen that
the mistakes have been caused by the perpetrator to the whole system, i.e Indian IT Industry ans
the shareholders. By resorting to unfair and illegal activities, deontological principle was violated.
Shareholders were lied to for close to a decade. Unfair means were used to maintain a higher
position. The so called profits came from Mr Ramalingaraju’s unethical activities.
❖ Moral Standards: Using the principles that are mentioned above, moral standards are derived.
Let us assume Satyam has made small, focused changes that it could have done when for the first
time, it did not meet the stakeholders’ expectations. End result is Satyam still would have been a
major IT player in India. Investors’ would not have lost $2.8 Billion. PricewaterhouseCoopers
would still be auditing in India. Satyam has missed the least obvious, easiest solutions to its
problems, thereby causing this catastrophic effect. Hence we can say that Satyam Computers Pvt
Ltd was the reason why the impact has lasted for years. Mr Ramalingaraju was unfair and
unethical and never championed moral well-being.
❖ Moral Rules: Mr Raju has resorted to inflating the figures over 8 years. The result was the
inflated valuation of his company, the unearned recognitions he received etc. His aim was just to
boost himself and his company but the ill effects were spread throughout the industry, people and
nation as a whole. Hence, we can come to a conclusion that the solution that he has chosen indeed
was detrimental to everything that was related to it. We can conclude that the actions were aimed
at just improving Satyam but affected the whole of Indian IT industry and all shareholders.
❖ Moral Judgment: Mr Raju never morally assessed the result of his actions. His only aim was to
make his company look better, by any means possible. He never aimed at building a sustainable
company by helping others. He was blinded from the cost benefit analysis and pushed all the
shareholders in despair.
❖ Learning: The reasons will always affect the results. The judgements were derived from the
extraction of moral rules from moral standards. And similarly, moral standards were derived from
the moral principles and moral principles were derived from the moral theories. All these will
provide reasoning and justification to the moral judgements.