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ethics_research_paper_-_phase_i.docxBusiness Ethics Research Paper
Phase 1: (5%)
A brief one page paper that identifies the unique ethical issue (topics to choose from are below), the ethical dilemma and the traditional theories (utilitarian, deontological, virtue, teleological) that will be used to suggest potential resolution of the dilemmas.
Phase 2: (30%)
Required Elements of Final Project:
Using the information from Phase 1, students will thoroughly research the topic and define the ethical concerns in detail.
Using two of the traditional theories from week 2, suggest potential resolutions to the dilemma(s)
Week 2 readings
What Is the Relationship Between Business Ethics and Decision Making?
Norman Bowie: a Kantian Approach to Business Ethics
Terms In and Types of Ethical Theory
In the discussion of the resolution, include the impact that ethical relativism and globalization may have upon the suggested dilemma resolution.
Relativism readings
Ethical Relativism and Business
Theory of Ethical Relativism (Criticism of the theory of ethical relativism)
Ethical Relativism discussion of points for and against theory
Criticism of Ethical Relativism
Ethical Relativism (Points Against the Theory)
Effects of Globalization readings
It's A "0.6%" World: Who Owns What Of The $223 Trillion In Global Wealth
The 147 Companies That Control Everything
Who Controls the World? Resources for Understanding this Visualization of the Global Economy
Select the best resolution and explain in detail why.
Required Formatting of Final Project:
· This paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, and six to eight pages in length excluding the title page and reference page;
· Title page;
· Introductory paragraph and a summary paragraph;
· Use headings to demarcate your discussion;
· Write in the third person;
· Use APA formatting for in-text citations and a reference page. You are expected to paraphrase and not use quotes. Deductions will be taken when quotes are used and found to be unnecessary;
· Submit the paper in the Assignment Folder.
Please also read the Professors notes below
Topics to choose from – Blue is main topic green is articles that relate to that topic
1. Snowden and the Ethics of Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing: Redefining Ethics
2. Is Business Bluffing Ethical?
Critique of Is Business Bluffing Ethical
3. Value-Led Business/Show me the money: How sustainability Creates Revenue at Bloomberg
Harnessing the Power of Corporate Culture (Developing Leaders for a Sustainable Global Society).
Lesson Four: The Ethical Dimension of Sustainability
4. When Robots Lie: How should we program computers to deceive?
Unchartered Territory: When Innovation Outpaces Regulation
Information Ethics (Picking up Where Laws Leave Off)
Ethics in the Provision and Use of IT for Business
These are some references from our reading material
Moral Universalism (Discussion of the classic philosophers on the issue of universal morality)
Kant’s Moral Imperative (Telling the truth is universally accepted)
Ethical Decision Making – Some Examples
Norman Bowie: a Kantian Approach to Business Ethics
Examples of Ethical Issues in Business
The Toughest Ethical Decision: Right vs. Right
A Framework for Thinking Ethically
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
Building the Business Case for Ethics (p. 3-9 only)
Truth in Ethics: Law vs. Ethics
Relationship Between Ethics and Law
General Guidelines for Making Ethical Decisions
A Framework for Thinking Ethically
Values and culture in ethical decision making
Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions
Organizational/Business Ethics (What does it mean to the organization to be ethical?)
Why it Pays to be Socially Responsible!
What Are the Major Ethical Issues Business People Face?
Information from Professor on what the paper needs to have
Phase I – What is the “Ethical Issue”? Actions for Phase I – What is the “Ethical Issue”?
Many of you struggled with identifying the ethical issue in the factual scenario you wish to research for your Final Project. What is an ethical issue?
The ethical issue is that which causes you moral difficulty about a factual scenario. It is often a conflict in our values. This is generally more than just asking whether one will – or will not – do the “right” thing. For example, one does not generally have an “ethical issue” about whether or not to kill someone. I have a value for human life; I tend to live in harmony with that value and do not kill people. No ethical issue here.
But consider a fact scenario where one person is threatening to kill 100 other people and you have the ability to prevent him from doing so, by killing him before he can carry out his threat. The ethical “issue,” though, is still not whether or not I will kill that person. That is phrased as a factual question, calling for a determination of action: what will I do. My ultimate determination as to what I will do will depend on my analysis of the ethical issue.
The action contemplated is killing – an action generally held to be wrong, immoral. The challenge presented here, though, is that this generally-wrong action appears to be “good” and even necessary in this particular case, because the person to be killed will otherwise kill 100 people. Here, the value in conflict is the value of human life itself. I value human life; here’s a situation that is in conflict with that value, a situation I can apparently dispose of by acting contrary to my value of human life. . . .
You begin to see traces of the ethical issue, I hope. Ethical issues can be phrased in different ways, and can come from a variety of viewpoints. I can view this as a straight question of justification: does saving 100 lives justify killing one person, who threatens those 100 lives? Alternatively, I can present the ethical issue as a comparison of values: the ethical issue is then seen as the difficult balance to be made between the value of the life of one person and the lives of 100 people, if/when the single person has wrongfully threatened the lives of the 100. We could also view this as a conflict between the value of human life and the value of public safety and/or protection.
The ethical issue changes again if the threat of the one against the safety of the 100 is not a wrongful threat of violence, but a threat that lies outside of his control (as, for example, from a highly contagious disease). Here, to the question of the relative values of life, we would add a value of compassion or benevolence, in which we might view a further conflict as arising out of a perceived moral responsibility not only to care for the 100 who are still healthy, but to care also for the one person who is so grievously ill (and who unwittingly presents such a danger to the others). The ethical issue then becomes how one may exercise mercy, care and benevolence toward the one seriously ill, while yet also exercising due care for the safety and welfare of the 100 others in the community who are still healthy.
Ethical dilemmas consist of those difficult situations where it appears that there is no one “good” choice that can be made, ethically. This will often come about because the only available choices are between two “wrong” options, morally (you can either kill the poor unfortunate sick man or you can risk infection of 100 healthy people), or it’s a choice between two good - but mutually exclusive – options (you can either help this one, or you can help that one, but you can’t help both.)
As you consider the case scenarios that you have proposed, first, think through what the issues are. Is there a question of respect for another’s autonomy? For another’s freedom/liberty? Is there a question of justice? – whether under John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness, or under another view of distributive justice as either egalitarian, socialist, libertarian, communist, or capitalist? Is there a question of a respect for human dignity, let’s say, which is so often a hallmark of a Kantian approach to situations where people are treated as means to ends, rather than respected for their own human agency.
Once you have sketched out the ethical issue, you should be able to determine just what kinds of dilemmas could arise under this unique ethical issue. To return to my illustration, we could imagine dilemmas regarding the proper allocation of scarce resources (medicines and the attention of medical personnel) as between the sick and the well, or even as between the sick and the sick! That dilemma will look very different if, for example, the medical emergency is brought about by a single infected person who is attempting to wield a plague as a weapon of terror. Contrast this with the case of the single ill person who became ill trying to help others in a foreign country – as we have seen this year, dealing with American health care personnel who have returned to the United State, infected with the Ebola virus. In that situation, we might modify the ethical issue to reflect the moral character of the person needing our help, and to take notice of the justice and gratitude requirements that have arisen.
From a business perspective, if I am considering a case in which my company has been trying to develop a vaccine for Ebola, for example, and the U.S. has been the subject of terrorism-type attacks by which infected people are attempting to enter the U.S. for purposes of starting a pandemic, and at least one of my workers has been infected as the result of an attempt to destroy our work developing the vaccine – there are a number of different “ethical issues” I could focus on here. First, I would look at the interested parties: myself, the corporation, the shareholders, the stakeholders, the employees, the infected employee, the terrorist(s), the United States, and U.S. citizens generally. Who wants what, and why?
Here, the financial motive will probably fade into the background pretty quickly, as the corporate shareholders (like the stakeholders and the U.S. citizens generally) will undoubtedly value their own lives over that of making money. However, if we could quickly identify and quarantine infected people, perhaps the profit motive might become more viable. The ethical issues will then center on questions of freedom and autonomy for those who are sick and/or who have been exposed to the disease, in conflict with the value of preserving health and safety in the general population.
Next, we will focus on what obligation we might have for care of the sick. From the corporate side, what obligation might we have to make available our limited (and unapproved/unpatented) vaccine? Let’s assume that we know it works, but it is hard and expensive to produce, only a limited supply is available, and we have not yet undertaken the FDA approval process, so there are questions of legal liability if something goes wrong, as well as the prospect of publicizing our process, which may destroy the trade secret approach we have been operating under, pending FDA approval and patenting. Here, the ethical issues would focus on whether financial constraints trump the value of human life, and if so, which constraints? We might also focus on the ethical issue of safety versus risk, as we attempt to balance generally accepted safety regulations (and the FDA testing and approval process) in the face of a current threat of death.
This will show us one very obvious possible dilemma: Our coworker is ill and will in all likelihood die unless she receives an injection of our miracle vaccine, which we know will work, but which is not FDA approved. Federal law prohibits us from dispensing the medication. If we do dispense the medication, we will be in violation of federal law, and the doctor who dispenses it may lose his license to practice. If we do not dispense it, our coworker will die. This is a classic dilemma between two “bad” choices.
Having chosen to dispense the vaccine, we have further ethical issues to determine. Given a scarce resource and a threat of losing intellectual property rights in the vaccine by advance disclosure, who would we chose to receive the vaccine, if they consented to receive it? Here, we might address the question of the moral character of the people who are either sick or who have been exposed to the disease as a way of determining our proper response. Are they sick because they were trying to kill others with their illness? Or, are they sick because of the criminal act of another? Finally, are they sick because of their act trying to help others who were sick?
Here, we might find the classic dilemma between two “good” choices: we have an effective dose for only one person – and we have two people who deserve to get it. The person who does not get it will die. It is not possible to ‘split’ the dose. . . . It is a “good” choice to give it to person A; it is a “good” choice to give it to person B. But I cannot do both.
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I present these thoughts to you, to show you generally how to approach ethical issues and the question of a dilemma. Also, to show you that coming up with “The Issue” is not as straightforward as you might think. At the same time, though, an ethical issue is not obvious just from your factual scenario.
Ethics is a creative activity – with many different ways of approaching and visualizing a problem. In your Final Project, your assignment is to show how you have visualized and approached a particular ethical issue. You must start by verbalizing what that issue is, and what ethical dilemmas it can lead to. Then, you will be able to research and analyze the best ethical approach to resolving the issue and to acting in ways that will best overcome the dilemma.
Please think about your factual scenario – and the ethical issues – and then reason it out, in the way we have been practicing. Reasoning these ideas through will be very different than trying to “apply” ethical theories like rules or calculators that will, at the very mention of their name, spit out the “ethical result”.
Kant (or Mills/Utilitarianism, or Aristotle/virtue ethics) will not tell you what to do. Those ethical theories, however, will help shape how you may think about what to do, and will help you make valid arguments supporting your ethical analysis and conclusion as to what you will do, and why.
