Assignment:
Read Decision Point: What Would You Do? 3 page APA
1. Scenario 1: You are the first person to arrive in your classroom and as you sit down you notice an iPod on the floor underneath the adjacent seat. You pick it up and turn it on. It works fine and even has some of your favorite music listed. You realize that you are the only one in the room and no one will know if you keep it. You see other students entering the room so you place the iPod on the floor next to your belonging. You will have the whole class period to decide what to do.
2. Scenario 2: Instead of finding the iPod, you are a friend who sits next to the person who finds it. As class begins, your friend leans over and asks your advice about what to do.
3. Scenario 3: You are now a student representative on the judicial board at school. The student who kept the iPod is accused of stealing. How would you make the decision about the situation?
Write a 3 page APA style paper discussing the following questions related to the above scenarios:
• What are the key facts that you should consider before making a decision, as either the person who discovered the iPod, the friend, or the judicial board member?
• Is this an ethical issue? What exactly are the ethical aspects involved in your decision?
• Who else is involved, or should be involved, in this decision? Who has a stake in the outcome?
• What alternatives are available to you? What are the consequences of each alternative?
• How would each of your alternatives affect the other people you have identified as having a stake in the outcome?
Where might you look for additional guidance to assist you in resolving this particular dilemma?
DISCUSSIONS: 150 WORD EACH QUESTION
(1) Read the Decision Point: Who is to Say What is Right and Wrong?
Discuss the following questions related to this scenario:
-Would you accept this explanation and be content with your failing grade? If not, how would you defend your own, opposing view?
-Are there any relevant facts on which you would rely on to support your claim?
-What values are involved in this dispute?
-What alternatives are available to you?
-Besides you and your teacher, are there any other people who are or should be involved in this situation, any other stakeholders?
-What reasons would you offer to the dean in an appeal to have the grade changed?
-What consequences would this professor's practice have on education?
-If reasoning and logical persuasion do not work, how else could this dispute be resolved?
Other than reasoning and logical persuasion, what is the major alternative for resolving conflicts? Of course, the most common alternatives have been force and violence.
(2) What kind of organization would you like to work for? What would be the best? What would be the most realistic?
Think about and Discuss its structure, physical environment, lines of communication, treatment of employees, recruitment and promotion practices, policies towards the community and so on.
Consider also what you lose because of some of these benefits (for example if the company contributes in the community or offers more benefits for employees there might be less money for raises.)
Discuss trade-offs. Link the costs and benefits (utilitarianism) to the value of what the firm is doing (universalism)
(3) Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business: A Reason to Debate Featuring Milton Friedman, Whole Food's John Mackey, and Cypress Semicondutor's T. J. Rodgers. Pages 231-239
Discuss the concept that corporations add far more to society by maximizing "long-term shareholder value" than they do by donating time and money to charity.
How important is this concept to business, society, and to you? Which position do you believe is more accurate...Rodgers or Mackey?
(4) Read Decision Point
Inquiring Employers Want to Know
The following information is sometimes requested on standard employment applications, though job candidates might consider some of it to be private or personal.
Which of the following items about an employee might an employer have a legitimate claim to know, and why?
-A job applicant's social security number
-An applicant's arrest record
-An employee's medical records
-An employee's marital status
-Whether a job applicant smokes
-An employee's political affiliation
-An employee's sexual orientation
-An employee's credit rating
Consider the following questions in the assessment of this scenario:
• What facts are relevant to your decisions?
• What would the consequences be of refusing to answer any questions on an employment application?
• Are you basing your decision on particular rights of the employee or the employer?
Are there people other than the employer and employee who might have a stake in what information is released to employers?
(5) Are some products too dangerous to be marketed in any circumstance? What regulations, if any, would you place on marketing cigarettes? Handguns? Prescription drugs?
As a starting point, refer to The American Marketing Association's Statement of Ethics, found at www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/Statement%20of%20Ethics.aspx which provides guidelines for marketing products.
This code of ethics can be used to locate other codes and regulations that may address this issue.
(6) Do you believe that business has any direct ethical duties to living beings other than humans? Do animals, plants, or ecosystems have rights? ?What criteria have you used in answering such questions? What is your own standard for determining what objects count, from a moral point of view?