Examples of Applied Ethics in Business
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It is pointless to understand the values if you are unable to identify them in real life. Below are examples of how each values might show up in another applied ethics context - business. Granted, in this class we will focus on analytics, but these may be helpful examples. Note that any value may show up a different levels - at the individual level, at the organizational level, and at the socio-economic level |
Equality
- Individual: “Do my actions show that I believe that my interests are more important than this other person's interests?”
- Organizational: “Does everyone of similar work experience on our sales team have a fair chance at that promotion?”
- Socio-economic: “Does our society have social structures that make success more difficult for one group than another?”
Happiness
- Individual: “Are my words offensive to this other person?”
- Organizational: “When our employees complain about harassment, do we have policies that allow us to address their concerns quickly and respectfully?”
- Socio-economic: “Does our government use symbols that are hurtful for some of our citizens?”
Autonomy
- Individual: “Am I mistreating or deceiving this person so that I can get what I want?"
- Organizational: “Are we mislabeling our product as "good for the environment" with the hope that our customers will choose to purchase it?
- Socio-economic: “Does our policy violate the right of some of our citizens to make their own choices?”
Trust
- Individual: “Are my actions compromising the possibility that this person would trust me in the future?”
- Organization: “If I betray someone on the team I manage, will that harm my ability to be an effective leader in the future?"
- Socio-economic: “Does this policy make it less likely that some people will go to the police?”
Virtue
- Individual: “If I falsify the numbers on this report in order to make it look like I met my yearly sales goals, will lying become part of who I am?”
- Organization: “Does the culture of our organization make it more likely that our employees will do the right thing?”
- Socio-economic: "What kind of society do we want to have?"