Case study 1 Summary Randall recently finished graduate school with an M.A. in advertising and works at a major agency in account services. His job requires him to work as an assistant account executive for a client that is introducing a new sports car. His responsibility would be to drive the new sports car for six months while selling the car and hand out supplementary materials to whomever was interested in the car. Randall would not be able to tell the individuals that the car was not his and this promotion seemed deceptive to him. Virtue Ethics In order to best analyze this case; I will use virtue ethics to help decide what Randall should say and to whom. Randall is clearly smart and educated, yet when presented with a promising job, …show more content…
Potter’s box has four components: facts, values, principles, and loyalties. Randall is posed with a dilemma of whether to do something ethically right, i.e. declining the promotion due to wanting to be a good person, or ethically wrong, which means staying with the company. It is important to distinguish the values of the stakeholders involved, in order to help Randall make an informed decision. The stakeholders involved are the company, Randall’s team, and the major automobile client. One could speculate that Randall wants to please his team members and boss by deciding to sell the cars. The car company has professional values in which they are more concerned with making money than the ethics of their actions which in turn contribute to questioning their virtues. The potential buyers of the cars can also be affected by the values of the company and Randall’s team. If they chose to lie, the buyers are misled into buying a product that can effect the relationship between the consumer and the company. The next step in Potter’s box is ethical principle. The ethical principle that is applicable to this situation is Aristotle’s Golden Mean which states that moral behavior is the mean between two extremes- one of excess and the other deficiency (Bivins, 78). This can be adapted to the virtue of truthfulness but if used excessively it would become …show more content…
The first prima facie duty is fidelity, and one of the subsets it lists is one should not lie in any aspect of their lives. This binding duty is something that Randall should consider when deciding if he should say anything. The ethical obligations that Randall has to the buyers of said car, his team and company are all different. His ethical obligation to himself is to live a truthful life which can lead to a good character. Furthermore, the ethical obligation Randall has to the consumers is also do not lie. Ross considers it a duty of fidelity to not lie and lying to unsuspecting individuals could result in them trusting you and possibly buying the product (Bivins, 26). One of the ethical obligations toward the stakeholders based on Ross’s prima facie duties is the duty of justice. Ross states that if someone receives a gift that brings him or her happiness, it is up to them to provide or prevent the distribution, regardless of their position or power (Bivins, 26). This is applicable to Randall, as he has an ethical obligation to speak up or ignore his gut feeling. Randall accepted the position, which means he has an ethical obligation to his company unless he quits. The ethical obligation of the automobile company would be a duty of beneficence. The duty of beneficence is applicable to the company because they are introducing a new car
Critical Response: Given the three possible responses from the book, I feel like #2 is the most ethical of the three. However, I feel like all three aren’t satisfactory ways to treat this situation. I will analyze them one by one, then give my opinion of what the salesperson should do.
Throughout life many individuals, not just in the business world, are faced with the moral dilemma of doing what is conscientious as human beings verses what society deems incorrect. Applying the learning from this week, Armani’s options would be to decline meeting with Mr. Petz until the actual trail date that could be considered a conflict of interest “An attorney, an accountant, a business adviser or realtor cannot represent two parties in a dispute and must avoid even the appearance of conflict”(dictionary law, 2015). Therefore, applying right verses right to my personal work experience has been situations in which employees, mostly drivers, seek additional incentives for business tasks through me. The applies a right for the driver to receive payment for work contracted; however, the right in my place of employment, involves me not allowing any extra incentives that were not already established during their initial contract that would conflict with my
A recent scandal involving up 500,000 Volkswagen cars comprising of 24 different model vehicles has dropped Volkswagen from their position as number one auto maker. The emissions of these cars were 40 times higher than the limits stated in United States emotions laws. One critical engineer James Robert Liang, has agreed to cooperate and pleaded guilty for cheating emotions testing with special software. This blunder has cost Volkswagen $15 billion, the jobs of those employees involved, and their reputation. Executives deny connections to the scandal and say lower level employees alone are to blame. Although this begs the question; what would an ethical engineer do in such a situation? Refusing to cooperate with his superiors, risks compromising his loyalty to the company and losing his job. However, if the scandal remains hidden, James has not only lied, but he has directly increased harmful emotions which harm the environment. He now faces 5 years in prison followed by deportation.
Given that the number one objective that corporations are after is profit above all else, and the main expectation of a salesman is to bring in sales for the corporation, this makes the objective of actually helping people find an automobile that will improve their quality of life come in at least in second place by default. Many times, car salesman are tempted to make a sale to person, even though they know the person cannot actually afford the vehicle, to achieve both their quota of sales for the company and also to make their commission. While some may have no problem at all doing this, the person we are imagining may be left feeling that his job requirements go against his moral and ethical standards; as well as a feeling that he could be doing something else that benefits people in a greater
In a workplace there are many decision to be made, however, an ethical decision is the most challenging. An ethical decision involves knowing what is right or wrong and then doing the right thing (McNamara, n.d). However, the right thing not always can be the correct decision; it will depend on the perspective of each stakeholder. An employee can make an ethical decision in regards to product or service. In order to further reflect whether a decision is ethical, I will consider an example extracted from the “Real-to-Life Examples of Complex Ethical Dilemmas” and the results from the answers to “Method One – Ethical Checklist.” The example that I’ve chosen is "A customer (or client) asked for a product (or service)
The quality, the happiness, the good thing that you can give the consumer is the end, your sense of duty to do these things is the means. Looking at things from this perspective, Fords actions were unethical. The Kantian idea causes me believe that Ford should have put the potentially life-saving part into the Pinto, not because they have a moral obligation to produce safe vehicles, or because they want praise for looking out for the safety and well-being of their consumers, but because it’s the right thing to do. Clearly, Ford didn’t do that. Based on the case study and the information presented, they allowed financial data and projections to dictate the decision, whether morally right or
Virtue ethics is concerned with being a good person and exhibiting good virtues. Using animals for cosmetic testing purposes often times is a clear example of when one lacks virtue and exhibits vices. Being a caring, compassionate and loving person is what one would hope we all strive to be in our everyday life. Virtuous traits must move beyond the inconsistency towards animals and instead should shift these virtues into their consistency, thus including animals in moral value. For the treatment of animals to be improved upon with lasting change and equality, the argument for what is considered virtuous must expand to animals aside from humans.
This essay will provide a theoretical understanding of the four ethical frameworks: Consequentialism, Non- Consequentialism, Virtue Ethics and Care Ethics. When applied to a situation these frameworks help teachers to resolve and justify their decision making. The objective is to apply the four frameworks to the scenario Helping Molly, to establish the most ethical course of action. Finally, a recommended course of action will be justification. The overarching ethical issue present within the Helping Molly scenario is the community sponsorship and the alignment with school beliefs and initiatives.
Question 1: According to Kant, what is required for an action to have moral worth? What kinds of actions are excluded from having moral worth? What would be an example of one that meets Kant’s requirements?
In addition, clarify my stance on what is the right thing to do in this case and the justification for it, and present proof to elucidate the unlawful practice presented in this case. To begin with, based on the extensive examination of virtue ethicist in the second case study and using some of the words used by Professor V, a person representing this theory may focus on achieving the gold of the human by knowing, internalizing, and applying objective principles to act morally correct. As said in case two, a virtue ethics expert is likely to recommend Alex to act as a virtue person in his place. For this scenario, based on this philosophical view, the morally correct virtues act is to be honest and abide by the law because of the emphasis of this theory on the rule of character and virtue. Therefore, they may recommend Alex to notify the internal audits of his findings regarding the misstatement of the corporate revenue, etc.
As in any other discipline that entails interaction with individuals, the aspect of ethics must include a conscious principle. To define ethics in its simplest form, it is known as the ability to distinguish right from wrong. In the movie, the sudden pressure from management drives the company’s salesmen to increase sales with no regards to ethics in order to maintain job security. All of the main characters had made their fair share of unethical decisions, out of desperation, to increase their sales and ultimately to keep their jobs. The degree of each decision can be left for viewers to determine the level of appropriateness based on their own values. Personally, although all characters have made unethical decisions, the most ethical salesman was Ricky Roma. Ri...
This paper will illustrate the moral, social, and factual implications of the Volkswagen scandal regarding the case dealing with the emissions standards of their diesel engine vehicles. The reader should note that this analysis is given from two different philosophical points of view. The philosophical perspectives being used here in this criteria are from the Kantian and Rule-Utilitarian ethics perspective. This paper will demonstrate the moral implications of the case, and how this applies to Mr. James Liang’s actions regarding ethical responsibility. Mr. Liang and his colleagues worked for Volkswagen to create a low emission diesel engine. In the course of the project, it was apparent that the emission goal could not be achieved. To circumvent this problem, Mr. Liang and his peers developed a software application to trick emission test. This situation was discovered, and on September 9th 2016 Mr. Liang pleaded guilty to the charges presented against him in Detroit Michigan. In the discourse below analysis will be given to determine the Kantian and Rule-Utilitarian basis on Mr. Liang’s situation.
I picked virtue ethics because I believe that it is very close to what I am. Character is something that I value a lot in a person. However, I very seldom think about what the other person can think of me. I am always thinking about what I do and how do I become better. I do not worry about what other think of me and I try to not judge them either. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Virtue is a broad term and can mean many things.
Although virtue ethics is deeply divided in interpreting the virtue of different characteristics and the morality of their manifestations in society, it consists of six essential rules that can be found in all forms of virtue ethics. According to one of those rules, an action is morally correct if a person with a virtuous character would perform the same action in the same circumstances (Oakly & Cocking, 2004), and that rule could explain Sally's case as morally correct action. However, several people could argue that virtue ethics should be practiced without harming others. While Sally is assisting a man in need, she is also working against the company policy. It has been argued that business environments can provide a suitable environment to practice virtues, but the opposition states that it is closer to deontological requirements for following rules that are not necessarily based on personal characters and virtues (Moore, 2002).
The automotive industry is a legendary ethical battlefield, with mechanics and repairs shops known to try to make an extra buck or two by selling customers parts they don’t know they don’t need and overcharging them for it, and wary customers trying to balance their budget, it goes back and forth. In the end however the winner is usually the mechanic. This ethical quagmire brings us to the very roots of ethical decision making.