Axia College MaterialAppendix C

Ethical Decisions Scenario AnalysisFor each of the following scenarios answer the questions and explain whether your answers fit with traditional or modern ethical thinking. After you have finished responding to the scenarios, discuss whether you generally make ethical decisions using a traditional or a modern ethical model. Provide an example using an experience you have had in your daily life.  

Scenario OneYou are a manager at your current company. You receive a call requesting a character reference for an employee you know to be unreliable and dishonest but who has not broken any rule directly. 

What should you tell the prospective employer?  What type of information would you tell the prospective employer? How would what you share be to your advantage or disadvantage?

Response to Questions First, I would need to follow the current laws, as they are very clear on what

can and cannot be told to someone requesting information. I would answer the questions to the best of my ability without giving a good or bad reference.

Depending on what the employer asks and what the law allows. I would not divulge private information on the employee. If asked the reliability I would only state the facts (if allowed by law) on absenteeism, performance etc.

If this person is a current employee and I give information that is basically saying this is not a “model” employee than I would be at an advantage in that the employee would not quit working for me. On the flip side the disadvantage could also be the employee would continue to work for me where I would prefer that he/she finds another job so I may hire a reliable person for the position.

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Scenario Two

Mike is currently enrolled in a challenging course. His personal life is also unusually complicated by his seriously ill mother who lives out of state. Mike receives an e-mail from an individual who has taken this course previously and who Mike knows did reasonably well in it. In the e-mail, the individual offers Mike, for a fee, all the course assignments, discussion question responses, and Checkpoint answers. 

How should Mike reply to his friend?What are the positive and negative consequences of accepting this offer?What are the positive and negative consequences of refusing this offer?

Response to Questions I believe, given Mike’s current life stresses he would be very tempted to accept the friend’s offer however, what Mike should do is politely decline. He should tell the friend that he must follow the school’s code of ethics as well as the plagiarism policies. He could suggest to the friend that he (Mike) will call on him/her if he gets stuck on an assignment, asking for tutorial help since the class is a little challenging to him. The positive to accepting the offer is that Mike would not have the added stress of completing the assignments and readings because he would already have all the answers. The negative side is that Mike, depending on his own moral character, would feel guilty about turning in work that is not his own. He should be concerned about getting caught using another student’s work - and possibly failing the class or assignment as a consequence. The positive to refusing the offer is the sense of accomplishment Mike will feel when he makes it through the course, using his own work. The negative is that the stresses in his personal life could negatively impact his coursework, causing him to fail the course or possibly even withdraw from the university altogether.

Scenario Three

You are a politician involved in a hotly contested race to retain your seat on the city commission. The political issues are important to you, but allegations have been raised that your opponent is leaving his wife for a younger woman. These allegations are unproven. Your campaign advisors have urged you to release this information to help your campaign.

What moral and ethical considerations come into play when making this decision?

What are the positive and negative consequences of using the information?What are the positive and negative consequences of not using the

information?

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Response to Questions First of all, the fact that my opponent is leaving his wife has nothing to do with the campaign I am running so morally and ethically it would be wrong to release this information. In the event that a divorce is coming I would think the parties involved would make a public statement, if necessary, when the time is right. The positive to using the information would be to gain votes from citizens who may be outraged at the situation. The negative is intentionally hurting all parties involved as I would not know who knew the information before I made it public (such as opponent’s wife, children and family members). The positive to not using the information is that I would be standing behind my good moral character and behaving honestly and ethically during my campaign, which could be rewarded by more votes and the citizens knowing that I don’t resort to dirty politics. The negative is that the opponent may win the seat on city commission.

Reflection Question:Discuss whether you generally make ethical decisions using a traditional or a modern ethical model. Provide an example using an experience you have had in your daily life.  

I think that for the most part I use a mix of both traditional and modern ethics in my daily life. Some decisions based on ethics that have been instilled in me for years by family and some made that older generations may not agree with, but I see it as times changing.

One example is pertaining to my daughter and MySpace, the online networking site that is very popular among the young generations. When she originally asked me to allow her to have a MySpace “page” almost a year ago I was against it, thinking “no way, you are not going to put your life on the internet”. The more she asked, the more I kept thinking about it. Eventually, after much “soul-searching” I gave in and allowed her to have the page. My mother and even my daughter’s father did not agree with her having the page, both of them following more traditional ethic models. I realized that times are changing, networking is happening all around us, her friends had pages online….so I laid down some strict rules, including me always having her password for random checks of messages etc and basically put my faith in her to be “good”. To date, my decision has been a good one, she has proven that she can be trusted and is not doing anything that would deem her as having bad moral character.

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