Question: Suppose you work for a small startup company involved in the innovative application of 3D printing technology, like AllRoad Parts. Your company is 2 years old, employs 50 people, and, like many startup companies, is short of money. Even though you're relatively junior, you've impressed the company's founders, and they have asked you to take a leadership role on a number of special projects. Recently, the company has been investigating developing an information system to store 3D printing designs and make them available to customers for purchase. You've been assigned to a committee that is developing alternative IS solutions for consideration by senior management. You and a co-worker, Leslie Johnson, have developed two different alternatives for consideration by the committee. You believe that Alternative Two is vastly preferable to Alternative One, but Leslie believes just the opposite.
You think if Leslie's alternative is chosen, the result will be a major financial loss, one that your young startup company is unlikely to survive. Even if that does not occur, so much time will be lost pursuing Leslie's alternative that your company will fall behind the competition in your dynamic, developing market and will lose substantial market share to the competition as a result. Unfortunately, Leslie is called away due to a family emergency on the day the two of you are to present your alternatives. You so strongly believe that Leslie's plan is likely to cause irreparable harm to the company that you decide to present only your plan.
While you never lie outright, you lead the committee to believe that both of you strongly support your plan. The committee adopts your plan and Leslie never learns that the committee saw only one alternative. Is your behavior ethical? The Ethics Guide in Chapter 1 introduced Kant's categorical imperative as one way of assessing ethical conduct. This guide introduces a second way, one known as utilitarianism. The basis of this theory goes back to early Greek philosophers, but the founders of the modern theory are considered to be Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, as you will learn in your business ethics class. According to utilitarianism, the morality of an act is determined by its outcome. Acts are judged to be moral if they result in the greatest good to the greatest number or if they maximize happiness and reduce suffering. The prior sentence contains a great deal of subtlety that has led to numerous flavors of utilitarianism, flavors that are beyond the scope of this text. Here we will work with the gist of those statements. Using utilitarianism as a guide, killing can be moral if it results in the greatest good to the greatest number. Killing Adolf Hitler would have been moral if it stopped the Holocaust. Similarly, utilitarianism can assess lying or other forms of deception as moral if the act results in the greatest good to the greatest number. Lying by telling someone with a fatal illness that you're certain he or she will recover is moral if it increases that person's happiness and decreases his or her suffering.
1. According to Kant's categorical imperative, is your action not to present Leslie's alternative ethical?
2. According to utilitarianism, is your action not to present Leslie's alternative ethical?
3. Assume:
a. You were right. Had the company embarked on Leslie's alternative, it would have driven the company into bankruptcy. Does this fact make your actions more ethical? Explain your answer.
b. You were wrong. Leslie's alternative would have been far superior to yours for the company's future. Does this fact make your actions less ethical? Explain your answer.
4. In your opinion, do the intended consequences or the actual consequences have more bearing when assessing ethics from a utilitarian perspective?
5. You could postpone the meeting until Leslie is able to attend and thus allow Leslie to present the alternative to yours. Doing so, however, increases the likelihood that the committee selects Leslie's alternative, and you firmly believe that decision will be fatal to the company.
a. According to Kant's categorical imperative, is a decision not to postpone ethical?
b. According to utilitarianism, is a decision not to postpone ethical?
Suppose Leslie learns you presented only your alternative, and you two become archenemies. To the company's disadvantage, the two of you are never able to work together again. According to utilitarianism, does this outcome change the ethics of your behavior?
6. Suppose that instead of not presenting Leslie's alternative at all, you present it, but in a very negative light. You are honest when you focus the bulk of your description of it on disadvantages, because that's what you believe. However, you also know that Leslie does not agree with the way you see the situation. Given your biased presentation, the committee selects your alternative.
a. According to Kant's categorical imperative, is your behavior ethical?
b. According to utilitarianism, is your behavior ethical?