ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 1 Assignment
ETHICAL MEMOIR
Compose a 2-page paper that describes a
particular moral-ethical dilemma that you encountered and what the outcome of
that dilemma was. Did you solve the dilemma? If so, how? If not, what were the
repercussions or consequences? What would you do differently if faced with the
same problem today? What is the importance of good ethics? Why should we be
concerned about our actions? Use the learning and reading for this week as a
basis for this paper. Regard the questions as prompts, not an ordering of your
responses. Regard the questions as prompts, not an ordering of your responses.
This is not a Q&A essay, but rather a graceful reflection regarding a
difficult ethical dilemma you faced.
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 2 Assignment
ETHICAL DILEMMA ANALYSIS
This week you will use the theories of
ethics discussed in class to reason through an ethical dilemma. Select one of
the ethical dilemmas below to deconstruct. the key problems, choices, and the
ethical theories that provide reasoning and guidance.
Ethical Dilemma 1: A newspaper columnist
signs a contract with a newspaper chain. Several months later, she is offered a
position with another newspaper chain, offering a higher salary. Because she
would prefer making more money, she notifies the first chain that she is
breaking her contract. The courts will decide the legality of her action, but
what of the morality? Did the columnist behave ethically?
Ethical Dilemma 2: An airline pilot
receives his regular medical checkup. The doctor discovers that he has
developed a heart murmur. The pilot only has a month to go before he is
eligible for retirement. The doctor knows this and wonders whether, under these
unusual circumstances, she is justified in withholding information from the
company regarding the pilot’s condition.
Ethical Dilemma 3: An office worker has had
a record of frequent absence. He has used all his vacation and sick-leave days,
and has frequently requested additional leave without pay. His supervisor and
co-workers have expressed great frustration because his absenteeism has caused
bottlenecks in paperwork, created low morale in the office, and required others
to do his work in addition to their own. However, the individual believes he is
entitled to take his earned time and additional time off without pay. Is he
right?
Ethical Dilemma 4: Rhonda enjoys
socializing with fellow employees at work, but their discussions usually
consist of gossiping about other people, including several of her friends. At
first, Rhonda feels uncomfortable talking in this way about people she is close
to; but then she decides it does no real harm, and she feels no remorse for
joining in.
In conjunction with the readings from
course material (be sure to cite),
decide which ethical dilemma you believe is most problematic and why.
Discuss the ideas of “good vs. evil,” “wrong vs. right,”
and “ought/should be vs. what is.” Form the readings, discuss the
ways in which Augustine and Aquinas would have solved the problem based on
lecture and course reading material. In what ways do Augustine and Aquinas
differ and why?
Create a document in APA format that
explains your findings and reasoning.
Your assignment should be between 2-3 pages accompanied by a 5-minute
oral presentation, using a technology of your choice (your instructor will
provide additional details). Both documents should be be submitted to the Week
2 assignment box.
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 3 Assignment
GREATER GOOD ANALYSIS
Consider the following three problems. In a
written response, analyze each problem, identify the consequences of the
actions taken, and then determine whether the actions taken represented a
greater good, who would benefit from the good, and whether the consequences
ethically justify the decisions and actions.
1) The Mayor of a large city was given a
free membership in an exclusive golf club by people who have received several
city contracts. He also accepted gifts from organizations that have not done
business with the City, but might in the future. The gifts ranged from $200
tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and jewelry.
2) A college instructor is pursuing her
doctorate in night school. To gain extra time for her own studies, she gives
her students the same lectures, the same assignments, and the same examinations
semester after semester without the slightest effort to improve them.
3) Todd and Edna have been married for
three years. They have had serious personal problems. Edna is a heavy drinker,
and Todd cannot keep a job. Also, they have bickered and fought constantly
since their marriage. Deciding that the way to overcome their problems is to
have a child, they stop practicing birth control, and Edna becomes pregnant.
Using what you have learned from
collaborations, discussions, and readings up to this week, explore your answers
to these ethical dilemmas. How would
Locke have addressed or solved the problem? Explain how his ethics and the
answer he may have given are different from or the same as yours.
Compose a 3-5 page paper discussing all
three ethical dilemmas in depth.
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 4 Assignment
ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP
Using academic scholarly research tools,
find a current event article that addresses an ethical dilemma from the past
five years and annotate it thoroughly.
What are the key points to the article?
Summarize the dilemma. What are
the key terms of the article? What
conflicts or controversies does it raise?
Where can you offer analysis or an original point of view? Once you have a handle on the article and
your reaction to the issues it raises, use it as a foundation to:
Summarize your selected current even and
ethical dilemma in 2-4 paragraphs.
Apply Kant?s Categorical Imperative to the
problem you highlight.
Apply any other method you have encountered
in lecture material and the readings to help develop your analysis.
Conclude with a recommendation for a
resolution.
Follow the format requirements: Your paper
should be 3-4 pages (title and reference pages not included in page
count). You MUST provide the source of
the foundation dilemma, and thus this paper will require 1 reference using at
least 1 correct in-text citation (indicating quoted or paraphrased material
from the article and where to locate it).
Use APA format in citing the source.
Refer to course resources for details and help in achieving APA style
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 5 Assignment
YOU DECIDE
The “You Decide” assignment
presents a difficult and painful dilemma, with you in an imagined professional
role. Go through the You Decide presentation, make the decision it calls for
and compose a paper and presentation that explains your decision and your
reasoning and justification for it.
In this case, you will be confronted with a
real industry situation. You are called upon to make a painful medical decision
and to explain it both orally and in writing.
Who benefits from what you decided, who gets denied a needed benefit,
and why? You will compose an official
memorandum that will be kept for the record and could potentially be read not
only by your Peer Review Committee, but also by those involved in charitable
fundraising, which supports hospital development, as well as by others with
financial interests in the decision.
You will see notice that there is time
pressure in the simulated situation, so remember that you would not have the
luxury to waver in the decision-making process, and as the decision-maker, you
would not have the luxury of consulting a broad spectrum of advisers. It falls on you to decide!
Include in the document and presentation
the utilitarian ethical philosophy of John Stuart Mill (from the lecture and
audio for this week) and one other ethical philosopher of your choosing that we
have studied to date, and use both of those philosophies to bolster your
decision. This paper will be at least 2 pages and no more than 3 pages with a
2-3 minute oral presentation. Remember, both professional written form and
potential audience, as well as tone when writing this sensitive memorandum.
Submit your paper and narrated presentation
by the end of the week.
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 7 Assignment
There are two major components of this
assignment:
First, select an organization which has
dealt with significant ethical issues recently. Examples are listed below. This
will be the foundation for your case study. To help complete your case study,
you will need to conduct research on your selected organization and consider
the ethical issues involved with this case. Be prepared to describe the ethical
issues involved, furnish specific examples and evidence, and utilize the
ethical concepts from the course to analyze the issue by following the outline
provided.
Second, you will develop you own personal
ethical philosophy to support your analysis of your selected case. As part of
designing your ethical philosophy, you will need to include specific and clear
details and guidelines that will guide ethical choices. You will use these
guidelines to help illustrate how your philosophy relates to this
organization’s ethical issue and what you would do as a result and why.
This will be an APA paper that use and
cites course material (textbook and the lessons) and includes at least three
additional scholarly sources.
The paper will must include the following
sections:
Introduction/thesis- Provide a strong
introduction and thesis to pull this paper together.
Facts- This section should use your outside
research to describe what happened and what the ethical issue was. What is the
current state? What was the outcome?
Ethical Analysis- Create one subsection per
team member and use a philosopher studied in this course and apply their
ethical philosophy to this issue. Examples are Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbs,
Kant, Mills, Locke, Rand, and Ghandi. Each subsection must use citations to
show what is being applied and should be 1-2 pages in length.
Ethical Dilemma Resolution- Models give us
a “series of questions” to work through when faced with an ethical dilemma.
Choose either the Laura Nash method or the Blanchard and Peale method and apply
it is detail to create an ethical resolution and apply it to the outcome of the
issue.
Personal Ethical Philosophy- Each student
will provide 2-3 pages that explains their own personal philosophy developed
from the course (See the Week 7 discussion) and also how it applied to the
organizational ethical issue that is the subject of this assignment. This
should also contain a reflection on the course and how it has impacted them
personally.
Conclusion- The team should wrap up with a
conclusion that powerfully draws on what was learned in this assignment and the
ethical lessons to draw as a result.
A voicethread summary will be created and
submitted to the Week 8 discussion on Sunday or Monday or Week 8. The team will
submit the paper to the Week 7 submission box.
Organizations with recent ethical issues
examples:
-United Drags a Bloodied Passenger Off a
Flight
-21st Century Fox and Bill O’Reilly
-Alphabet or Facebook and the impact on the
election of 2016.
-Uber’s culture of sexual harassment and
Uber’s alleged use of a software dubbed “Greyball” to avoid
regulators in geographic regions where it was operating illegally
-Harvey Weinstein’s Multiple Sexual Assault
Accusations
-Equifax’s Data Breaches
-Samsung’s Bribery Charges
-Kobe Steel, Mitsubishi Materials, and
Japan’s Corporate Governance Issues
-Wells Fargo’s Fake Accounts
-Apple’s Slowed Down iPhones
-Ohio State University’s head coach Urban
Meyer and alleged domestic abuse by a fired coach.
-Mylan’s Epipen Price Gouging
-Samsung Battery Recall
-The Panama Papers
– Wikileaks and the Democratic National
Party
ETHC445
Principles of Ethics
Week 8 Assignment
REFLECTION
Courses like this one intend to expand your
horizons by bringing new ideas and more refined ways of thinking about the
kinds of decisions and commitments that you will make both in career and in
life as a whole.
This course is Foundations of Ethics.
Whatever you do and wherever you do it, you have gained tools of thinking and
analysis that will serve you well. Keep these tools handy and at the forefront
of your attention — whatever it is that will come into your hands in the
future. You are far more equipped for leadership than you were a few short
weeks ago.
Please answer the following questions in a
2-3 page reflective essay:
What of all that you have learned and
practiced in this class will make the most significant impact(s) in your study
of your declared major here at DeVry and in your career as you envision it?
How might this course experience connect
with and inform what you are looking forward to learning more about throughout
your education and career as a lifelong learner?
Consider how one learns: how much learning
is individual? How much learning is socially achieved by discussing with one or
more people in a variety of roles?
To what extent is knowledge something one
finds? To what extent is knowledge something one creates through
interpretation, application, and analysis?
What are the differences between
information and knowledge?