Assignment Ethical Decisions Scenario Analysis

Axia College Material

Appendix C

Ethical Decisions Scenario Analysis

For 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 One

You 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.

a. What should you tell the prospective employer?

b. What type of information would you tell the prospective employer?

c. How would what you share be to your advantage or disadvantage?

Response to Questions

A. I should tell the prospective employer my thoughts on the employee that they are calling about. Although telling the possible employer of the employee's bad characteristics might not feel great to do, they have the right to know of the employee's work ethics.

B. The information that I would tell the prospective employer is the information that they were looking for. I would tell them of the employee not being reliable, and of them being dishonest. I would also tell them that the employee has not done anything directly wrong, just that they might not be the greatest person for the job.

C. The information that I share would be to my advantage for the fact I would probably not be losing this employee to another employer.

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.

a. How should Mike reply to his friend?

b. What are the positive and negative consequences of accepting this offer?

c. What are the positive and negative consequences of refusing this offer?

Response to Questions

A. Mike should reply to his friend what he thought was morally right. He should tell his friend that he cannot accept his offer because it would be wrong turn in his friends work as his own. Even though his situation may be very hard he should do the right thing. Talking with instructors and his academic counselor about his problems and working around them would be his best bet.

B. The positive consequence of accepting his friends offer would be that he would pass the course and he would have more time to devote to his personal life and his sick mother. The negative consequences of taking the offer would be knowing in the back of your mind that you did not earn what you received credit for. Also a negative effect of accepting the deal could be getting caught. That could make it worse because