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
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
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.
a. What moral and ethical considerations come into play when making this decision?
b. What are the positive and negative consequences of using the information?
c. What are the positive and negative consequences of not using the information?
Response to Questions
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.