Ethical Considerations Essay Examples

Ethical considerations if a business of faced with the dilemma of making profit and conserving the environment as a social responsibility
An ethical issue refers to a situation whereby an individual or organization is required to choose amongst alternatives that must be evaluated as either wrong or right. Ethics refers to the condition of doing right in any given situation or moral principles that guide how individuals should act which is classified as either right or wrong usually according to an individual or the society at large. An ethical issue arises when a business company opts to make as much profit while pollution the environment, the dilemma here being the regulation and social consequences. The company management may opt to bribing the regulation implementing organization as long as they continue making short-term profits before the law catches up with them, by then they may be forced to agree with the rule or shut down, but they will have made as more finances than when they may have started. The consequences on the social life will have reached the stage where it affects their health and made the environment unbearable.
The deontological theory defends the case that persons strictly stick to their contract and task when examining an ethical dilemma. This applies that a person pursues their own responsibility to an extra entity or society since keeping one's responsibility is what is considered ethically right. Though this theory is seen by many as having many benefits, it has its own share of weakness that of allowing individuals to act on their own duties and to make a few individual happy as opposed to making many members of the society happy. It has also the weakness of not having a logic way of deciding what a person’s duties entail. At times, the responsibilities and duties of different individual’s conflict, making the people not to be efficient enough in implementing the set plans and roles. The conflicting duties does not make the individuals put on their best commitment to solving issues as they do not know who should be implementing what duty at what time. The theory does not put into consideration other people’s welfare, and it fights to meet personal desires as it does not provide any direction when an individual enters a difficult state where there are conflicting duties.
Adopting the utilitarianism theory seeks to make a large number of the society happy as opposed to the fear minority who are the business owners. This theory will force the business owners to listens to the cries of the affected society members and change their way of actions. This theory also has the benefit of predicting the consequences of each activity, hence will work to avoid falling into the trap of the said dilemma. Another option that can deal with the dilemma is the business owners implementing the seven principles with openness for the good of every stakeholder. The principles; justice, fidelity, autonomy among others, when implemented well will be having positive results to all.
Another option that is used to resolve the dilemma is analyzing the actions and making the right decisions. The actions should not emphasize the consequences but considers the impact it will have on the moral principles, on man and the natural environment at large. It should also consider if the actions conflict between the different principles and rights of different people. Then the decisions made should put in place the analyzed details and should be fair to all the stakeholders and should consider all the opinion of everyone involved or affected.
The business owners should avoid falling into temptations of using short cuts to make quick financial profits in an unethical manner, like using children to provide cheap labor, selling of obsolete products to avoid making losses and avoiding the cost of cleaning the environment or installing the up-to-date technology that injures the third party who are supposed to be the prospective consumers in terms of increased prices.
Good ethical behavior has many benefits like higher profit returns in the long run, improved relationship between the brand and consumers as they easily recognize the positive efforts the company puts in place, the ethical financiers will be a new source of finance and the employees will be motivated as they will be working safe business environment.
The changes suggested on issues that cannot be grouped as either ethical or unethical should be avoided as they will be sending different signals to different people, the business entity should be responsible of any decision it makes that may not be considered right by consumers and should regularly involve the stakeholders before it comes to the put off making a decision.
On ethical considerations following a personal example, my old man works at the criminal justice department. On a given occasion, he was faced with a workplace dilemma that he was not at liberty to share with outside parties, but I had the opportunity to look through his work. Clearly what I did was not right but it adds value to my classwork since I have a real life example of an ethical dilemma. The issues identified were the right of a family whose member had been murdered and they were seeking justice since they knew the murderer and the importance of arresting the members of the drug cartels and putting them out of business following substantial evidence since the murderer had vital information on them.
In attempting to reach an amicable resolution of the problem, the outcome should be deemed fair by the parties involved. The informant is also an offender; care should therefore be taken so that he does not interfere with the investigations. This can put the investigating officer at risk and make the agency lose its credulity. The families involved should be updated with the necessary information about the case. This is also as a precaution to ensure that they do not interfere with investigations. They must however, be reassured f justice for their kin.
The federal agent must seek to make good use of the informant. He must therefore employ control measures such as establishing a clear standard of operation by giving written directives; training on how to manage informants; and clearly stipulating the duties and responsibilities of those involved in case.
The above will ensure that the informant does not evade prosecution charges. The informant’s family should then be assured of justice when investigations are completed. This is best put in writing. Professionalism is of importance, for both parties to have confidence in the process. At the end of the investigations, justice should be seen to have been done.