Ethics in Decision Making
How does one make an ethical decision? What are the moral and ethical forces that influence decision-making? What should they be? What is ethical? Webster's Dictionary (1982) defines ethical as "involving or expressing moral approval or disapproval; conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct". This paper will discuss ethics in decision-making and what ground rules exist, if any, in making ethical decisions. This paper will also discuss the elements of an ethically defensible decision. This paper will conclude with comments on ethics in computer technology and today's ethics scandals. An ethical person is concerned with what is the right thing to do. Ethical values should be applied to all decisions that are made. This can be a challenge as there are often many forces of influence involved, ambiguous circumstances or details, and different stakeholder groups with different takes on morality. Companies often develop a set of universal values similar to a mission statement to address ethical questions. This "values statement" would be above and beyond a company's policies and procedures. For example, the Ethics Resource Center (1996) was asked, "to develop and integrate a practical ethics program into the daily ope
Decisions were filtered through these basic ethical and moral tests. Hospital management and floor staff needs to be notified when this event will occur and informed of alternate arrangements. There was no ethical commitment by the managers here. Ethical questions are raised to each and every one of us, most every day in both our personal and professional lives. Ethics in Relation to Technology The matter of moral and ethical decision-making confronts computer technology professionals every day. The legal community and politicians are scrambling to catch up with technology and deal with the vast array of privacy and ethical issues. Professionally, we may or may not be in a position where we are required to make huge impacting ethical decisions. Only an investigation will tell I am afraid. However, often, urgency is a deciding factor of influence on a decision. Obviously, choices were made to put aside potential public risk and public trust in exchange for profits. It is far too prevalent in today's headline news and universities and business schools are scrambling to upgrade their curriculum to include some ethics requirements. The only basis for this decision must have been money over risk. What drove the management at Tokyo Electric Power? Was the decision to falsify safety records premeditated or was it a result of a cacophony of smaller decisions gone awry. It will take years for the nuclear power industry to recover public trust in Japan and abroad.
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