Case Assignment

After reading James’ case, I feel that his behavior could be construed as ethical. The whole situation happened due to a lapse in judgment. He was led astray due to his hunger and forgot that his business card would not be able cover the cost of the Oreos and he would have to pay for them himself. This is an honest mistake and he meant no harm by this. To right this wrong, James decided to go out of his way to buy Oreos for the hotel and bought them for a very good price. He replaces the old Oreos he ate with the new Oreos. By doing this he lessens the workload of one of the hotel staff members. They do not have to restock the room with Oreos since he decided to buy new Oreos for the room. On top of this, let’s say that the Professor didn’t eat any of the Oreos and just leaves them in the minibar in the room. Three months pass and the next person who is staying in that room decides to eat the Oreos. Since they are expired, the person who ate the Oreos gets sick and as a result they rightfully sue the hotel. In this hypothetical scenario, James choosing not to eat the Oreos puts the hotel and the person who eats them in a bad predicament. However, since James did eat and replace the Oreos before they expired, the next person who decides to eat them won’t be at risk of getting sick and the hotel avoids a lawsuit.

From a different perspective, the professor’s actions could be construed as unethical. Based on the Laczniak framework article, the professor’s behavior could be unethical because it violates one of the questions he made on ethics. The question that the professor’s actions violates is the one that states, “Does action A leave another person or group less well off? Is this person or group already relatively underprivileged?” I would say that the hotel isn’t underprivileged if it can consistently get people to stay at it, but James actions do leave them less well off. James’ decision to replace the Oreos after he realized that he