Ethical Decision Making

1763 Words4 Pages

Before beginning this class, I did not realize that there were so many ethical problems occurring on a daily basis, whether it is personal or business. Many problems that occur around my workplace seemed to be regular, everyday problems, and I never thought of them as being ethical or non-ethical. Unfortunately, this is probably the reason that so many ethical problems continue to occur within a company without being corrected; due to the fact that the issue at hand is not seen as an ethical problem, many people do not take the necessary steps to correct the problem. During this class, I gained knowledge on the 8-step decision making process that is described by Nelson and Treviño that helps an individual make the best decision when dealing with an ethical problem. By recognizing the existence of an ethical dilemma, an individual will be able to have moral awareness about the issue. Next, the individual should make a decision about what’s right by using their moral judgment. Last, but not least, the individual should then demonstrate ethical behavior by taking action to do the right thing (Nelson, 2007, p. 16). The way a decision is handled all depends upon the individual’s characteristics, though. Although many people understand the ethical problem that is at hand, many times they find it difficult to do the right thing; this is due to different types of pressures they feel obligated to fall in.

During this course, I also realized there are many reasons an individual or company should care about ethics. Not only will it make an individual feel good about themselves, it will also show other people that the individual cares about his or her morals. Our future depends on everyone caring about ethics; unfortunately, many people do...

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