The study of Ethics brings many different kinds of “thinkers” together. One person’s philosophy on ethics may be another person’s philosophy on evil.
The study of Ethics brings many different kinds of “thinkers” together. One person’s philosophy on ethics may be another person’s philosophy on evil. We will be working this term on constructing personal ethical bases and understanding how Ethical Codes (both personal and professional) are created and followed.
To start us thinking about the different areas of philosophy and ethics, and how we fit into the different molds or world views, let’s discuss the differences and similarities between these views. To do this, let’s look at the role of right and wrong, laws which regulate behavior, principles vs. morality, and the role of ethics in our society.
To start out we’ll answer some of these questions and create more of them as we go. Pick one of the following and respond to your classmates thoughts and views:
Do we need ethics if we have laws? Why or why not?
Is it ethical to change our own views of ethics based on the situation we are in?
Can we “legislate” ethics?
How does Aristotle’s “virtue ethics” mirror your ethical view, or how is it different?
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 2 Discussion
MAJORITY THINK
American writer Mark Twain warned that “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” This is a common sentiment that we experience at different points throughout our lives. It is likely that your parents warned you “not to follow the crowd,” or your school counselors warned you about “peer pressure.”
The United States utilizes a democratic republic form of government, which espouses the “majority rule” in many instances. For example, when passing laws, Congress and state Legislators use majority voting. When electing our officials, the majority rules. But, is our government unethical?
This week’s discussion will examine majority findings or rules:
The great majority of people seem to find nothing objectionable about the use of commercials in children’s television programming. Yet a distinguished panel commissioned by the National Science Foundation found reason to disagree. After reviewing 21 relevant scholarly studies, they concluded:
It is clear from the available evidence that television advertising does influence children. Research has demonstrated that children attend to and learn from commercials, and that advertising is at least moderately successful in creating positive attitudes toward and the desire for products advertised. The variable that emerged most clearly across numerous studies as a strong determinant of children’s perception of television advertising is the child’s age. Research clearly establishes that children become more skilled in evaluating television advertising as they grow older, and that to treat all children from 2 to 12 as a homogenous group masks important, perhaps crucial differences.
Do you think the majority view is correct in this case? What difference would it make that a majority thinks this way?
Do you think the use of commercials in children’s television programming raises any ethical questions? Explain your reasoning.
Do you wish to place evidence for what you say before your classmates?
Be sure to utilize the readings and ethical theories for this week to highlight key aspects of your responses.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 3 Discussion
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
Social Contract theorists say that morality consists of a set of rules governing how people should treat one another that rational beings will agree to accept for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others agree to follow these rules as well.
Hobbes runs the logic like this in the form of a logical syllogism:
We are all self-interested,
Each of us needs to have a peaceful and cooperative social order to pursue our interests,
We need moral rules in order to establish and maintain a cooperative social order,
Therefore, self-interest motivates us to establish moral rules.
Thomas Hobbes looked to the past to observe a primitive “State of Nature” in which there is no such thing as morality, and that this self-interested human nature was “nasty, brutish, and short” — a kind of perpetual state of warfare
John Locke disagreed, and set forth the view that the state exists to preserve the natural rights of its citizens. When governments fail in that task, citizens have the right—and sometimes the duty—to withdraw their support and even to rebel. Listen to Locke’s audio in this week’s lesson and read his lecturette to be able to answer this thread.
Locke addressed Hobbes’s claim that the state of nature was the state of war, though he attribute this claim to “some men” not to Hobbes. He refuted it by pointing to existing and real historical examples of people in a state of nature. For this purpose he regarded any people who are not subject to a common judge to resolve disputes, people who may legitimately take action to themselves punish wrong doers, as in a state of nature.
Which philosophy do you espouse?
In coming to grips with the two and considering your experience of society as it is today, think out loud about what you experiences as the State of Nature, and tell us what you would be willing to give up in exchange for civil order and personal security?
You might consider what you have already given up in exchange for security as well as what might be required in coming days.
CASE STUDY: THE DEATH PENALTY
First, here is a word of caution. With this discussion comes a tasking to discuss the death penalty in two ways: first, as an expression of the social contract, where one person has killed another in a violation of that other person’s right to peace and safety, and second, as a rules-based function of the justice system being applied to a difficult situation.
What do you see going on that is a violation of the Hobbes/Locke social contract idea?
And you might also connect it with any of the Three Schools, plus Aristotle, that you have read in past weeks—and especially with the rules-based ethics model.
Here’s the situation: In Manatee County, Florida, a judge sentenced a man to death—the first time this had happened in the county for over 19 years. Sentenced to death was a 25-year-old man for the January 7, 2004, murder of both of his parents by bludgeoning them to death in their bed with a baseball bat.
Now, with your social contract ethicist hats on, tell us what you make of this quote by the judge at the sentencing, quoted from the front page of the November 17, 2007 Bradenton Herald: “You have not only forfeited your right to live among us, but under the laws of the state of Florida, you have forfeited the right to live at all.”
Remember to keep your responses in the context of our social contract discussion for this week and also connected with ethics of justice.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 4 Discussion
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS
Increasing food supplies are necessary to sustain growing populations around the world and their appetites for great food, quality products, and continuous availability.
A great deal of expensive research is invested in developing technologies to deliver productive agriculture. Horticultural efforts to breed hybrid crops are seen as far back as history can observe, and there have been efforts to domesticate improved animals, as well. Gene splitting was a 1990s technology to improve the health and productivity of farm crops. With the 21st century have come genetically modified foods (GMF) through the use of nanotechnology to cause changes at the genetic and even molecular levels. These are very expensive technologies, and many new products have been patented and otherwise protected as proprietary products of intellectual property.
Drive out to the country during growing season, and you will see signs identifying that the crop has been grown with a protected seed that cannot be used to produce retained seed for planting in the next growing season.
What ethical issues are raised by this legal process of patent protection, and how do we see the primary schools of ethics used in these proprietary measures? What, in this deontological week and in our learning to date, informs our understanding of this situation, and what should be done about it? Use specific examples from the reading and Lesson for this week to help support your claims and reasoning.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 5 Discussion
UTILITARIANISM AND CARE BASED ETHICS
There are three basic propositions in standard Utilitarianism (Please be sure to listen to Mill’s audio lecture before joining this threaded discussion):
Actions are judged right and wrong solely on their consequences; that is, nothing else matters except the consequence, and right actions are simply those with the best consequences.
To assess consequences, the only thing that matters is the amount of happiness and unhappiness caused; that is, there is only one criterion and everything else is irrelevant.
In calculating happiness and unhappiness caused, nobody’s happiness counts any more than anybody else’s; that is, everybody’s welfare is equally important and the majority rules.
In specific cases where justice and utility are in conflict, it may seem expedient to serve the greater happiness through quick action that overrules consideration for justice. There is a side to happiness that can call for rushed decisions and actions that put decision-makers under the pressure of expediency.
Here is a dilemma for our class:
You are the elected district attorney. You receive a phone call from a nursing home administrator who was a good friend of yours in college. She has a waiting list of 3,000 people who will die if they don’t get into her nursing home facility within the next 3 weeks, and she currently has 400 patients who have asked (or their families have asked on their behalf) for the famous Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s (fictitious) sister, Dr. Jill Kevorkian, for assistance in helping them die. The 3,000 people on the waiting list want to live. She (the nursing home administrator) wants to know if you would agree to “look the other way” if she let in Dr. Jill to assist in the suicide of the 400 patients who have requested it, thus allowing at least 400 of the 3,000 on the waiting list in.
How would we use Utilitarianism to “solve” this dilemma?
How would we use cars-based ethics to “solve” this dilemma?
What ethics did your friend, the nursing home administrator, use in deciding to call you?
What ethics are you using if you just “look the other way” and let it happen?
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 6 Discussion
WORKING CONFLICT RESOLUTION METHODS
Different ways to analyze ethical behaviors and dilemmas exist, and many of them will help direct you to the correct or “best” solution to a problem.
As we have discussed since Week 1, sometimes right vs. right or wrong vs. wrong decisions have to be made.
In the lesson this week, you are given three ethical dilemma resolution models to try out on a dilemma provided there. Please review that interactive before posting to the discussion this week.
The dilemma in the Week 6 Lecture interactive (in the middle of the page) is where we will focus our attention. You MUST read the lecture and run the interactive in order to participate in the discussion this week!
Review the sample solution to the Laura Nash method. Do you agree with that analysis? If so, what parts do you think really helped you work through the dilemma? If not, which parts do you not agree with?
Review the sample solution to the Front Page of the Newspaper method. Do you think this is one of those types of dilemmas for which this model works? If not, why not? If so, why? How did using this method help you work through the dilemma?
Review the sample solution to the Blanchard and Peale method. Do you agree with the analysis? If not, why not? If so, in what way did this help you analyze this dilemma?
How can Ayn Rand’s four epistemological principles of objectivism be applied to this case? How might Rand’s solution differ from other methods?
Pick ONE of the above 4 questions and let’s get started. Feel free to kindly debate with each other. Do not take things personally if someone disagrees. Be sure to show that you have viewed the lecture and interactive and that you attempted an analysis for “high quality” posts this week.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 7 Discussion
PERSONAL AND BUSINESS ETHICS
Personal ethics often help us form relationships in all facets of our lives – including the workplace. As a result, it is important to think about the connection between personal ethics and business ethics. This week, we looked at two more ethical codes— one for the Project Management Institute, and one for Engineers.
You can see that both of them are much simpler than the Legal code we looked at last week, and even simpler than the Medical code of ethics. Appropriate professional behavior, practice, and discipline varies among professions and reflects the needs and values of the professional society in question.
Let’s then assume professional roles as we work on this fictional scenario:
It’s 2020, and General Foryota Company opens a plant in which to build a new mass-produced hover-craft. This hover-craft will work using E-85 Ethanol, will travel up to 200 mph, and will reduce pollution worldwide at a rate of 10 percent per year. It is likely that when all automobiles in the industrial world have been changed over to hovercrafts, emission of greenhouse gasses may be so reduced that global warming may end and air quality will become completely refreshed.
However, the downside is that during the transition time, GFC’s Hover-Vee (only available in red or black), will most likely put all transportation as we know it in major dissaray. Roadways will no longer be necessary, but new methods of controlling traffic will be required. Further, while the old version of cars are still being used, Hover-vee’s will cause accidents, parking issues, and most likely class envy and warfare. The sticker price on the first two models will be about four times that of the average SUV (to about $200,000.) Even so, GFC’s marketing futurists have let them know that they will be able to pre-sell their first three years of expected production, with a potential waiting list which will take between 15 and 20 years to fill.
The Chief Engineer of GFC commissions a study on potential liabilities for the Hover-vees. The preliminary result is that Hover-vees will likely kill or maim humans at an increased rate of double to triple over automobile travel because of collisions and crashes at high speeds — projected annual death rates of 100,000 to 200,000. However, global warming will end, and the environment will flourish.
The U. S. Government gets wind of the plans. Congress begins to discuss the rules on who can own and operate Hover-vees. GFC’s stock skyrockets. The Chief Engineer takes the results of the study to the Chief Legal Counsel, and together they agree to bury the study, going forward with the production plans. The Chief Project Manager, who has read the study and agreed to bury it, goes ahead and plans out the project for the company, with target dates and production deadlines.
Our class is a team of young lawyers, project managers, engineers, and congressional aides who are all part of the process of helping get this project off the ground. In fact, according to the first letter of your last name, you are the following team:
A-G: Attorney on the GFC team
H-N: Project Manager on the GFC team
0-S: Engineer on the GFC team
T-Z: Congressional Aide
Somebody sent a secret copy of the report to you at your home address. It has no information in it at all, except for the report showing the proof of the increase in accidents and deaths. The report shows, on its face, that the CLO, CE, CPM, and your Congressional Representative have seen copies of this report. On the front there are these words typed in red: They knew — they buried this. Please save the world!
Each of you feel a very loyal tie to your boss and your company/country. You all have mortgages, and families to feed. It is likely if you blow the whistle on this report, you will lose your job and your livelihood. You’re not even sure who wrote the study in your envelope or who actually sent it to you.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 8 Discussion
REFLECTION
This is a also good time to be looking back over this course and thinking ahead to what comes next for you.
Courses like this one intend to expand your horizons by bringing new ideas and more refined ways of thinking about the kinds of decisions and commitments that you will make both in career and in life as a whole.
This course is Foundations of Ethics. Whatever you do and wherever you do it, you have gained tools of thinking and analysis that will serve you well. Keep these tools handy and at the forefront of your attention — whatever it is that will come into your hands in the future. You are far more equipped for leadership than you were a few short weeks ago.
So, here are a few questions for this final week in class to help you reflect for the last formal assignment:
What of all that you have learned and practiced in this class will make the most significant impact(s) in your study of your declared major here at DeVry and in your career as you envision it?
How might this course experience connect with and inform what you are looking forward to learning more about throughout your education and career as a lifelong learner?
Consider how one learns: how much learning is individual? How much learning is socially achieved by discussing with one or more people in a variety of roles?
To what extent is knowledge something one finds? To what extent is knowledge something one creates through interpretation, application, and analysis?
What are the differences between information and knowledge?
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 1 Assignment
ETHICAL MEMOIR
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
Ethical Memoir
Compose a 2-page paper that describes a particular moral-ethical dilemma that you encountered and what the outcome of that dilemma was. Did you solve the dilemma? If so, how? If not, what were the repercussions or consequences? What would you do differently if faced with the same problem today? What is the importance of good ethics? Why should we be concerned about our actions? Use the learning and reading for this week as a basis for this paper. Regard the questions as prompts, not an ordering of your responses. Regard the questions as prompts, not an ordering of your responses. This is not a Q&A essay, but rather a graceful reflection regarding a difficult ethical dilemma you faced.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 2 Assignment
ETHICAL DILEMMA ANALYSIS
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
This week you will use the theories of ethics discussed in class to reason through an ethical dilemma. Select one of the ethical dilemmas below to deconstruct. the key problems, choices, and the ethical theories that provide reasoning and guidance.
Ethical Dilemma 1: A newspaper columnist signs a contract with a newspaper chain. Several months later, she is offered a position with another newspaper chain, offering a higher salary. Because she would prefer making more money, she notifies the first chain that she is breaking her contract. The courts will decide the legality of her action, but what of the morality? Did the columnist behave ethically?
Ethical Dilemma 2: An airline pilot receives his regular medical checkup. The doctor discovers that he has developed a heart murmur. The pilot only has a month to go before he is eligible for retirement. The doctor knows this and wonders whether, under these unusual circumstances, she is justified in withholding information from the company regarding the pilot’s condition.
Ethical Dilemma 3: An office worker has had a record of frequent absence. He has used all his vacation and sick-leave days, and has frequently requested additional leave without pay. His supervisor and co-workers have expressed great frustration because his absenteeism has caused bottlenecks in paperwork, created low morale in the office, and required others to do his work in addition to their own. However, the individual believes he is entitled to take his earned time and additional time off without pay. Is he right?
Ethical Dilemma 4: Rhonda enjoys socializing with fellow employees at work, but their discussions usually consist of gossiping about other people, including several of her friends. At first, Rhonda feels uncomfortable talking in this way about people she is close to; but then she decides it does no real harm, and she feels no remorse for joining in.
In conjunction with the readings from course material (be sure to cite), decide which ethical dilemma you believe is most problematic and why. Discuss the ideas of “good vs. evil,” “wrong vs. right,” and “ought/should be vs. what is.” Form the readings, discuss the ways in which Augustine and Aquinas would have solved the problem based on lecture and course reading material. In what ways do Augustine and Aquinas differ and why?
Create a document in APA format that explains your findings and reasoning. Your assignment should be between 2-3 pages accompanied by a 5-minute oral presentation, using a technology of your choice (your instructor will provide additional details). Both documents should be be submitted to the Week 2 assignment box.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 3 Assignment
GREATER GOOD ANALYSIS
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
Consider the following three problems. In a written response, analyze each problem, identify the consequences of the actions taken, and then determine whether the actions taken represented a greater good, who would benefit from the good, and whether the consequences ethically justify the decisions and actions.
1) The Mayor of a large city was given a free membership in an exclusive golf club by people who have received several city contracts. He also accepted gifts from organizations that have not done business with the City, but might in the future. The gifts ranged from $200 tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and jewelry.
2) A college instructor is pursuing her doctorate in night school. To gain extra time for her own studies, she gives her students the same lectures, the same assignments, and the same examinations semester after semester without the slightest effort to improve them.
3) Todd and Edna have been married for three years. They have had serious personal problems. Edna is a heavy drinker, and Todd cannot keep a job. Also, they have bickered and fought constantly since their marriage. Deciding that the way to overcome their problems is to have a child, they stop practicing birth control, and Edna becomes pregnant.
Using what you have learned from collaborations, discussions, and readings up to this week, explore your answers to these ethical dilemmas. How would Locke have addressed or solved the problem? Explain how his ethics and the answer he may have given are different from or the same as yours.
Compose a 3-5 page paper discussing all three ethical dilemmas in depth.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 4 Assignment
ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
Using academic scholarly research tools, find a current event article that addresses an ethical dilemma from the past five years and annotate it thoroughly. What are the key points to the article? Summarize the dilemma. What are the key terms of the article? What conflicts or controversies does it raise? Where can you offer analysis or an original point of view? Once you have a handle on the article and your reaction to the issues it raises, use it as a foundation to:
Summarize your selected current even and ethical dilemma in 2-4 paragraphs.
Apply Kant’s Categorical Imperative to the problem you highlight.
Apply any other method you have encountered in lecture material and the readings to help develop your analysis.
Conclude with a recommendation for a resolution.
Follow the format requirements: Your paper should be 3-4 pages (title and reference pages not included in page count). You MUST provide the source of the foundation dilemma, and thus this paper will require 1 reference using at least 1 correct in-text citation (indicating quoted or paraphrased material from the article and where to locate it). Use APA format in citing the source. Refer to course resources for details and help in achieving APA style
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 5 Assignment
YOU DECIDE
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
The “You Decide” assignment presents a difficult and painful dilemma, with you in an imagined professional role. Go through the You Decide presentation, make the decision it calls for and compose a paper and presentation that explains your decision and your reasoning and justification for it.
In this case, you will be confronted with a real industry situation. You are called upon to make a painful medical decision and to explain it both orally and in writing. Who benefits from what you decided, who gets denied a needed benefit, and why? You will compose an official memorandum that will be kept for the record and could potentially be read not only by your Peer Review Committee, but also by those involved in charitable fundraising, which supports hospital development, as well as by others with financial interests in the decision.
You will see notice that there is time pressure in the simulated situation, so remember that you would not have the luxury to waver in the decision-making process, and as the decision-maker, you would not have the luxury of consulting a broad spectrum of advisers. It falls on you to decide!
Include in the document and presentation the utilitarian ethical philosophy of John Stuart Mill (from the lecture and audio for this week) and one other ethical philosopher of your choosing that we have studied to date, and use both of those philosophies to bolster your decision. This paper will be at least 2 pages and no more than 3 pages with a 2-3 minute oral presentation. Remember, both professional written form and potential audience, as well as tone when writing this sensitive memorandum.
Submit your paper and narrated presentation by the end of the week.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 7 Assignment
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
This case study is due in Week 7. Please plan to begin your research and work this week.
There are two major components of this assignment:
First, select an organization which has dealt with significant ethical issues recently. Examples are listed below. This will be the foundation for your case study. To help complete your case study, you will need to conduct research on your selected organization and consider the ethical issues involved with this case. Be prepared to describe the ethical issues involved, furnish specific examples and evidence, and utilize the ethical concepts from the course to analyze the issue by following the outline provided.
Second, you will develop you own personal ethical philosophy to support your analysis of your selected case. As part of designing your ethical philosophy, you will need to include specific and clear details and guidelines that will guide ethical choices. You will use these guidelines to help illustrate how your philosophy relates to this organization’s ethical issue and what you would do as a result and why.
This will be an APA paper that use and cites course material (textbook and the lessons) and includes at least three additional scholarly sources.
The paper will must include the following sections:
Introduction/thesis- Provide a strong introduction and thesis to pull this paper together.
Facts- This section should use your outside research to describe what happened and what the ethical issue was. What is the current state? What was the outcome?
Ethical Analysis- Create one subsection per team member and use a philosopher studied in this course and apply their ethical philosophy to this issue. Examples are Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbs, Kant, Mills, Locke, Rand, and Ghandi. Each subsection must use citations to show what is being applied and should be 1-2 pages in length.
Ethical Dilemma Resolution- Models give us a “series of questions” to work through when faced with an ethical dilemma. Choose either the Laura Nash method or the Blanchard and Peale method and apply it is detail to create an ethical resolution and apply it to the outcome of the issue.
Personal Ethical Philosophy- Each student will provide 2-3 pages that explains their own personal philosophy developed from the course (See the Week 7 discussion) and also how it applied to the organizational ethical issue that is the subject of this assignment. This should also contain a reflection on the course and how it has impacted them personally.
Conclusion- The team should wrap up with a conclusion that powerfully draws on what was learned in this assignment and the ethical lessons to draw as a result.
A voicethread summary will be created and submitted to the Week 8 discussion on Sunday or Monday or Week 8. The team will submit the paper to the Week 7 submission box.
Organizations with recent ethical issues examples:
-United Drags a Bloodied Passenger Off a Flight
-21st Century Fox and Bill O’Reilly
-Alphabet or Facebook and the impact on the election of 2016.
-Uber’s culture of sexual harassment and Uber’s alleged use of a software dubbed “Greyball” to avoid regulators in geographic regions where it was operating illegally
-Harvey Weinstein’s Multiple Sexual Assault Accusations
-Equifax’s Data Breaches
-Samsung’s Bribery Charges
-Kobe Steel, Mitsubishi Materials, and Japan’s Corporate Governance Issues
-Wells Fargo’s Fake Accounts
-Apple’s Slowed Down iPhones
-Ohio State University’s head coach Urban Meyer and alleged domestic abuse by a fired coach.
-Mylan’s Epipen Price Gouging
-Samsung Battery Recall
-The Panama Papers
– Wikileaks and the Democratic National Party
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 8 Assignment
REFLECTION
This assignment was locked Feb 29 at 11:59pm.
This is a good time to be looking back over this course and thinking ahead to what comes next for you.
Courses like this one intend to expand your horizons by bringing new ideas and more refined ways of thinking about the kinds of decisions and commitments that you will make both in career and in life as a whole.
This course is Foundations of Ethics. Whatever you do and wherever you do it, you have gained tools of thinking and analysis that will serve you well. Keep these tools handy and at the forefront of your attention — whatever it is that will come into your hands in the future. You are far more equipped for leadership than you were a few short weeks ago.
Please answer the following questions in a 2-3 page reflective essay:
What of all that you have learned and practiced in this class will make the most significant impact(s) in your study of your declared major here at DeVry and in your career as you envision it?
How might this course experience connect with and inform what you are looking forward to learning more about throughout your education and career as a lifelong learner?
Consider how one learns: how much learning is individual? How much learning is socially achieved by discussing with one or more people in a variety of roles?
To what extent is knowledge something one finds? To what extent is knowledge something one creates through interpretation, application, and analysis?
What are the differences between information and knowledge?
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