Assignments
Using web based research, find an environmental-based ethical dilemma from the past five years online. ?(You can use a news story, an internet article, a law case, or anything from a governmental database for this assignment.) ?Then, using this story as a foundation for your dilemma:
1. Create a 2-4 paragraph "dilemma" similar to the other dilemmas you have been solving throughout this term.
2. Solve the dilemma using Kant's ethics (Categorical Imperative).
3. Solve the dilemma using any other method we have discussed to date (with which you agree.)
4. State which resolution (Kant's or the other one you chose) you prefer and why.
This assignment should be about two typed pages, double-spaced. You MUST provide the source of the dilemma, and thus this paper will require at least one "references." Use APA format in citing the source: Landmark Citation Machine.)
More Information about Kant to use in the paper:
The perplexities of life, compounding of difficult decisions, and dilemmas of ethics are difficult--true enough! So are thought processes. The Three Primary Schools all seek to bring order to ethical chaos by proposing a single criterion for making ethical decisions.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed such a single criterion: the criterion of duty. Ethical duty can be profoundly demanding, but knowing one's duty can help one make progress.
Duty comes in two forms:?* Hypothetical duties are tied to purposes to be achieved and what is required to achieve them. Their form of language displays the purpose; for example, "If you want to be strong and healthy, you ought to exercise." You can choose strength along with a prior choice to exercise. The hypothetical word is if and the ethical connection is ought.?* Categorical duty is deontological in that it applies universally; that is, at all times and places and circumstances. It is a single criterion for moral action that always applies apart from all considerations--most especially one's own desires.
There is only one Categorical Imperative, but it is commonly expressed in two formulations.
FIRST FORMULATION?"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Applying this to ethical leadership: Don't make yourself an exception to a rule that you implicitly or explicitly expect others to follow.
SECOND FORMULATION?"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means."
Applying this to ethical leadership: Treat every person as an end and never as a means to an end. This formulation is a demand for respecting people and their rights