In the case study of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrators, the main ethical issue was the use of power. When John Spencer became administrator of the EPA, he made the decision by himself to buy a membership of the chamber of commerce. Not only was this an ethical issue, but was also illegal under federal guidelines. Even though the purchase did not occur, he failed to consider the advice from employees and he was going to use taxpayer funds. Therefore, it was also a conflict of public interest since the public did not have an opinion on it or even aware of the situation. During his period in office as administrator, he continued to use public funds without justifying the expenses (O’Leary, 2014). In addition, he would intimidate/threaten any employee who questioned his decisions. As an administrator, Spencer brought up many ethical issues. He failed to be loyal to the Constitution and the law by breaking several laws such as the Civil Service Reform Act. He also used government money for personal expenses and failed to be honest multiple times while performing his duties. He gave preferential treatment to agencies when he did not implement clean up orders and failed to protect government property when he allowed outside agencies access to confidential information (US Office of Government Ethics, 2000). Similarly, when Robie Russell was assigned as EPA administrator, many ethical issues arose. He conducted meetings with only other administrators he trusted. The deputy administrator was not included and was only allowed to express his opinions in a pre-meeting with the division directors. Russell was also deleting negative comments from reports before releasing them to the public, which went against advancing the pub... ... middle of paper ... ...ged, listening, and understanding the organization (O’Leary, 2014). Works Cited American Society for Public Administration. (2013). Practices to promote the ASPA code of ethics. Retrieved from http://www.aspanet.org/public/ASPADocs/ASPA%20Code%20of%20Ethics- 2013%20with%20Practices.pdf Cooper, T. L. (2012). The responsible administrator: An approach to ethics for the administrative role (6th ed.). New York, NY: Jossey-Bass. O’Leary, R. (2014).The ethics of dissent: Managing guerrilla government (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press. US Environmental Protection Agency, 2013. Clean Water Act (CWA). Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/lcwa.html U.S. Office of Government Ethics. (2000). A brief wrap on government ethics. Retrieved from http://www.oge.gov/uploadedFiles/Education/Education_Resources_for_Ethics_Officials /Resources/bkbriefwrap_00.pdf
Realizing Ethical Issues Helps You Avoid Unethical Behaviors In this age of change, the human society is progressing rapidly on various fields. However, the ethical problems are becoming increasingly severe. According to the teaching notes of “In It To Win: The Jack Abramoff Story,” “During the Bush Administration, Abramoff was the most influential lobbyist in Washington, D.C. His excesses led to his downfall and that of Congress members with whom he was closely connected, including aides, business associates, government officials, and lawmakers.”
In “The Most Dangerous Game” the author creates two strikingly similar characters that blur the line of ethics. Rainsford, the protagonist, meets his adversary and leader of an exotic tribe, Zaroff, after falling off of a yacht and swimming to the nearest island. The short story then explores the events that transpires between the strangers – focusing on Zaroff's bloodthirsty hunt against Rainsford. Yet even with the two men on opposite sides of a loaded gun, they both share many common interests and views pertaining to their similar backgrounds, hunting methods, and desired end result.
In A Tactical Ethic, Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace, author Dick Couch addresses what he believes to be an underlying problem, most typical of small units, of wanton ethical and moral behavior partly stemming from the negative “ethical climate and moral culture” of today’s America (Couch, D., 2010, p. 15). In chapter one, he reveals what A Tactical Ethic will hope to accomplish; that is identify the current ethics of today’s military warriors, highlight what is lacking, and make suggestions about what can be done to make better the ethical behavior of those on the battlefield and in garrison. He touches on some historic anecdotes to highlight the need for high ethics amongst today’s military warriors as well as briefly mentions
Ferrell, O.C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2009). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases (7th ed.). South-Western College Pub;
There are unethical leaders from almost every professional, industry, or any type of business. Corporate executives like Kenneth Lay and Martha Stewart were taken before the court for poor ethical practices. Leaders of pharmaceutical companies have been found knowing about distribution of unsafe products. Leaders at Coke Cola were found guilty of racial discrimination and leaders of cruise ships fined for dumping waste in the ocean. News reports exposed Wall Street analysts who created phony reports, made profits, and pushing worthless stocks, left citizens questioning if they should invest their money. Leaders of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, were cited for practices of employee abuses and gender discrimination. Questions emerged in the news whether leaders of the tobacco i...
part in official argument about war" (Walzer XI). He proceeds to discuss in a greater
War has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the human race. As a result of the battles fought in ancient times, up until modern warfare, millions of innocent lives have ended as a result of war crimes committed. In the article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” Herbert C. Kelman and V.Lee Hamilton shows examples of moral decisions taken by people involved with war-related murders. This article details one of the worse atrocities committed during the Vietnam War in 1968 by the U.S. military: the My Lai Massacre. Through this incident, the question that really calls for psychological analysis is why so many people are willing to formulate , participate in, and condone policies that call for the mass killings of defenseless civilians such as the atrocities committed during the My Lai massacre. What influences these soldiers by applying different psychological theories that have been developed on human behavior.
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion was so powerful that it sent a fireball into the sky that was visible from as far as thirty-five miles away. Eleven workers were killed and seventeen injured in what became the largest offshore oil spill in United States history. Approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil was spilled out of the Macondo Prospect well and into the environmentally sensitive Gulf of Mexico. The disaster of the Deepwater Horizon can be relevantly compared to the Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial core meltdown, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger or the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion. All of these disasters were not the result of one mistake or one malfunctioning piece of equipment, but rather a lack of ethical decision-making or responsibility by the regulators and administrators charged with preventing such catastrophes from occurring. The post-event investigations of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill found that the United States government agency that was responsible for overseeing and regulating the oil industry was permeated with an ethical disregard for the regulations and professional standards that it was tasked with achieving. In the book “The Responsible Administrator”, author Terry L. Cooper explains how these abuses of power and a culture of unethical conduct can flourish and more importantly, how such unethical behavior can be prevented. Cooper endorses a dynamic “design approach” to ethics for public administrators to implement in both analyzing ethical dilemmas and when making ethical decisions.
These ethical issues were focused on PG&E and their employees. It seems this group of individuals did anything to get by, including an employee who cleaned the tanks at PG&E while continuing to have severe nose bleeds. Additionally, PG&E did not care for others; otherwise they would have changed their policies to stop the use of harmful chemicals. The only employee seemingly willing to come forward was a man named Charles Embry, who approached Erin toward the end of her investigation. He was instrumental in this law suit because he had saved documents that PG&E had requested he destroy, because he knew it was unethical to destroy the evidence of harmful chemicals, calling himself a “bad employee” in his own words for his actions. He watched his cousin pass away at only 41 years old, after suffering nose bleeds while cleaning the cooling towers, having his colon and intestines removed, and ultimately dying from kidney tumors. Charles Embry clearly cared about others, the greatest good for the greatest number, and was willing to go against his manager’s direction, to do as he was told (Banaji, 2003, pp. 6-7), and therefore far more ethical than his managers at
War has always been, and will always be, a necessary action perpetrated by man. There are many reasons for war: rage, passion, greed, defense, and religion to name a few. When differences cannot be solved or compromised through mediation with an opposing party, war is the last remaining option. Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun wrote in fourteenth-century Spain, that “War is a universal and inevitable aspect of life, ordained by God to the same extent as the sky and the earth, the heat and the cold. The question of whether to fright is not a significant moral question because fighting is constant; the minor decision not to fight this war will be made only in the context of knowing that another war will present itself soon enough because it is simply always there.” (Peter S. Themes. The Just War)
Nelson, L. &. (2007). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right-4th ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Songs, Inc.
War has always been, and will always be, a necessary action perpetrated by the human race. There are many different reasons for war: rage, passion, greed, defense, and religion to name a few. When differences cannot be solved or compromised through mediation with an opposing party and anger burns with a fiery passion, war is the last remaining option. Obviously, the purpose of any war is to win. How are wars won? Perhaps if we were to ask a member of the Defense Department during the early stages of the war in Iraq, his answer might be, “To win this war we must force the enemy into submission by means of ethical warfare.” If we were to ask a marine in the Second World War what he was told by his commanding officer he would reply, “To close with the enemy and destroy him.” (Fussell, 763).
Egoism focuses on what is best for one’s self. The top executives may have followed this ethics system because they made millions of dollars off of the Enron scandal even though they knew what they were doing was wrong. Since they were doing what was best for them, they must have been acting ethically. It could also be argued that utilitarianism was at work in regards to the Enron scandal. Utilitarianism holds that an action is ethical if it does the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. The end justifies the means. By manipulating their statements, Enron was helping all of their employees and shareholders to keep their jobs and money. This justified and made their choice to lie on their statements the ethical decision to
When an ethical dilemma arises within an organization, it is difficult to separate right and wrong with what is best for the majority. Sometimes the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.” In 2002, Enron Corporation shows us just that. By 2002, the sixth-largest corporation in America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case of the Enron scandal is one of the best examples of corporate greed and fraud in America.