Ethical Perspective Paper

Ethical Perspective Paper

Every individual has a moral responsibility to each other when a person knowingly and freely that the act was morally wrong to others and failed to act to prevent a harmful act. Ethical reasoning should be address at this point to gain a clear focus on problems to ensure each member of the organization is acting in morally responsible ways. Although, there’s no real definition of what constitutes a morally wrong act, causing physical or emotional harm as the result of the act is morally wrong. And to establish moral responsibility for ourselves and others, utilizing ethical principles such as character/virtue, obligation/deontology, results/utilitarianism, and equity/relativism are the fundamentals that can be used in ethical reasoning.

The character or virtue of an individual is a reflection of the behavior demonstrated in positive or negative ways. “For good actions to be productive, there are certain positive ends that a good person aims at, and virtuous action has to be evaluated according to whether and how well it secures such ends” (Sandler, R., 2007, Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Appearance to Environmental Ethics). The great strength of character is what it is to be a good person that shows the traits and dispositions in the moral sense and doing the right thing ethically.

“Deontology describes ethics in terms of obligation and duty. Deontological discussions of ethics typically focus on aspects of rational action such as autonomy and principle. The Golden Rule is deontological because it obligates a person to act toward others in ways that are consistent with the way they want to be treated” (Heichelbech, J. R., 2003, Ethics 101 Unabridged). Expecting others to treat another person differently would be irrational. Deception and manipulation are ethically problematic from deontological perspective, as they undermine the ability of others to make rational decisions.

According to Pieper (2008), “Utilitarianism is one of the major teleological, or consequentialist theories and is derived from the works of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001). It deems that the determination of whether or not actions are correct depends on the overall balance between risks and benefits

resulting from that action” (1). It is the doctrine that the morally correct course of action consists in the greatest good for the greatest number that’s maximized the total benefit resulting without regard to the distribution of the benefits and burdens.

The philosophy of relativism states that ethical decisions are a function of time, place, and culture, and therefore no universal rules exist. Dean (2005) stated, “From a relativistic perspective, a moral standard is simply