Assignment:
Read Case: Hacking into Harvard, located on page 71 in your textbook. As applicants began to defend themselves against the penalties handed out by the business schools, they appealed to both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist criteria to support their actions. Some responded by pointing out that their intentions were never malicious, while others argued they did not think checking their application statuses would cause any real harm. Review the case study, and analyze the actions of the students from a Kantian perspective. Consider whether the actions taken by the hackers were permissible according the standard of universal acceptability.
Discussion Questions
1. Suppose that you had been one of the MBA applicants who stumbled across an opportunity to learn your results early. What would you have done, and why? Would you have considered it a moral decision? If so, on what basis would you have made it?
2. Assess the morality of what the curious applicants did from the point of view of egoism, utilitarianism, Kant's ethics, Ross's pluralism, and rule utilitarianism.
3. In your view, was it wrong for the MBA applicants to take an unauthorized peek at their application files? Explain why you consider what they did morally permissible or impermissible. What obligations, ideals, and effects should the applicants have considered? Do you think, as some have suggested, that there is a generation gap on this issue?
4. Did Harvard and MIT overreact, or was it necessary for them to respond as they did in order to send a strong message about the importance of ethics? If you were a business-school admissions official, how would you have handled this situation?
5. Assess the argument that the applicants who snooped were just engaging in the type of bold and aggressive behavior that makes for business success. In your view, are these applicants likely to make good business leaders? What about the argument that it's really the fault of the universities for not having more secure procedures, not the fault of the applicants who took advantage of that fact?
6. One of the applicants admits that he used poor judgment but believes that his ethics should not be questioned. What do you think he means? If he exercised poor judgment on a question of right and wrong, isn't that a matter of his ethics? Stanford's Derrick Bolton distinguishes between a lapse of judgment and a lack of integrity. What do you see as the difference?
Based on this episode, what, if anything, can we say about the ethics and the character of the curious applicants?
Attachment:- Case - Hacking into Harvard.rar