Ethical Principles, Quick Tests, And Decision-Making Guidelines

1. Ethical Principles, Quick Tests, And Decision-Making Guidelines

2. Outline • Decision criteria for ethical reasoning • Ethical relativism: A self-interest approach • Utilitarianism: A consequentialist (results-based) approach • Universalism: A deontological (duty-based) approach • Rights: An entitlement-based approach • Justice: Procedures, compensation, retribution

3. Decision Criteria for Ethical Reasoning • A first step in addressing ethical dilemmas is to identify the problem and related issues. • Laura Nash developed twelve questions to ask yourself during the decision-making period to help clarify ethical problems.

4. Why? • These twelve questions can help individuals: • Openly discuss the responsibilities necessary to solve ethical problems • Facilitate group discussions • Build cohesiveness and consensus • Serve as an information source • Uncover ethical inconsistencies • Help a CEO see how managers think • Increase the nature and range of choices

5. Decision Criteria for Ethical Reasoning • The following three criteria can be used in ethical reasoning: • Moral reasoning must be logical • Factual evidence cited to support a person’s judgment should be accurate, relevant, and complete • Ethical standards used should be consistent • A simple but powerful question can be used throughout your decision-making process in solving ethical dilemmas: • What is my motivation for choosing a course of action?

6. Decision Criteria for Ethical Reasoning • A major aim of ethical reasoning is to gain a clearer and sharper logical focus on problems to facilitate acting in morally responsible ways. • Two conditions that eliminate a person’s moral responsibility for causing harm are: • Ignorance • Inability • Mitigating circumstances that excuse or lessen a person’s moral responsibility include: • A low level of or lack of seriousness to cause harm • Uncertainty about knowledge of wrongdoing • The degree to which a harmful injury was caused or averted

7. Ethical Relativism: A Self-Interest Approach • Ethical relativism holds that no universal standards or rules can be used to guide or evaluate the morality of an act. • This view argues that people set their own moral standards for judging their actions. • This is also referred to as naïve relativism. • The logic of ethical relativism extends to culture.

8. Ethical Relativism: A Self-Interest Approach • Benefits include: • Ability to recognize the distinction between individual and social values, customs, and moral standards • Problems include: • Imply an underlying laziness • Contradicts everyday experience • Relativists can become absolutists • Relativism and stakeholder analysis.

9. Utilitarianism: A Consequentialist (Results-Based) Approach • The basic view holds that an action is judged as right, good, or wrong on the basis of its consequences. • The moral authority that drives utilitarianism is the calculated consequences or results of an action, regardless of other principles that determine the means or motivations for taking the action. • Utilitarianism includes other tenets.

10. Utilitarianism: A Consequentialist (Results-Based) Approach • Problems with utilitarianism include: • No agreement exists about the definition of the “good” to be maximized • No agreement exists about who decides • How are the costs and benefits of nonmonetary stakes measured? • Does not consider the individual • Principles of rights and justice are ignored • Utilitarianism and stakeholder analysis.

11. Universalism: A Deontological (Duty-Based) Approach • This view is also referred to as deontological ethics or nonconsequentialist ethics and holds that the means justify the ends of an action, not the consequences. • Kant’s principle of the categorical imperative places the moral authority for taking action on an individual’s duty toward other individuals and humanity. • The categorical imperative consists of two parts.

12. Universalism: A Deontological (Duty-Based) Approach • The major weaknesses of universalism and Kant’s categorical imperative include: • Principles are imprecise and lack practical utility • Hard to resolve conflicts of interest • Does not allow for prioritizing one’s duties • Universalism and stakeholder analysis.

13. Rights: An Entitlement-Based Approach • Moral rights are based onlegal rightsand the principle of duty. • Rights can override utilitarian principles. • The limitations of rights include: • Can be used to disguise and manipulate selfish, unjust political interests and claims • Protection of rights can be at the expense of others • Limits of rights come into question • Rights and stakeholder analysis.

14. Justice: Procedures, Compensation, Retribution • The principle of justice deals with fairness and equality. • Two recognized principles of fairness that represent the principle of justice include: • Equal rights compatible with similar liberties for others • Social and economic inequality arrangement • Four types of justice include: • Compensatory • Retributive • Distributive • Procedural

15. Justice: Procedures, Compensation, Retribution • Problems using the principle of justice include: • Who decides who is right and who is wrong? • Who has moral authority to punish? • Can opportunities and burdens be fairly distributed? • Justice, rights, and power are really intertwined. • Two steps in transforming justice: • Be aware of your rights and power • Establish legitimate power for obtainingrights • Justice and stakeholder analysis.