Ans 1: The natural law of driving is unspecified as many people provide their viewpoints on driving to the left or to the right side of the road. It is necessary that no matter which side we drive, we respect the coordination and follow some way. Deontological ethical theory is impeccably suitable for the argument on driving a car on the left hand side of the road in a country where people normally drive on the right. Deontologists have come to an agreement that a judgment or a purpose regulates the ethical behavior and to drive on the wrong side of the road is illogical. As stated by Waluchow (2003) deontologists emphasize on actions, besides good or bad consequences that bear directly on its moral rightness or wrongness. Consequentiality theory is opposite of Deontologist theory as it does not enforce anyone to follow strict rules. It can be concluded that Deontologist theory is the best suited theory for the traffic laws.
Ans 2: It is totally unethical to create fake Facebook accounts as it infringes the principles of ethics, and also breaches the community trust. Creating a fake identity on Facebook is very simple as it only requires a working email address. Social media is a huge marketing tool for many companies to market their products, and to influence the common people many companies create fake accounts by violating the code of ethics. Even the government is seen to be involved in creating fake accounts to influence the public and to gather public opinion. Individuals on a person level create fake accounts to take revenge on someone, or to tarnish the status and image of a person. Most of the fake Facebook accounts are created in order to attract the opposite sex for sexual encounters, or for cyber bullying. Creating fake accounts is still an unethical practice as it intrudes upon the genuine social media user’s trustworthiness and knowing about the unfair practices on internet might force the user to abandon using the social media network.
Ans 3: Laws are based on ethics and they are made to maintain order, and generate morale in the society. Law is a set of rules that governs the global relationships, the populations and the nations. In law the fundamental moral beliefs and values of the society are enforced through compliance such as punishment, or fines. As stated by Reynolds (2011), Law is a system of rules that tells us what we can do and cannot do. Distinguishing or believing what is right and wrong is systematically considered as Ethics. Compared to law, ethics describes standards or codes of behavior expected of an individual by a group (nation, organization, profession) to which an individual belongs (Reynolds 2011). The code of conduct agreed upon by a culture is considered as ethics and based on this agreement the laws are governed. The ethical and legal values have a close relation, and privacy is a major concern in law and ethics.
Ans 4: Natural Disaster such as Katrina can incur huge losses to an individual, and to the environment. It is vital to store the personal documentation and records with the federal agencies to prevent loss of personal records. The government must have abundant resources to maintain the personal records of people who suffered in disasters. During times of widespread disaster, lack of sufficient redundant systems can lead to major problems (Reynolds 2011).
The pros of storing records with the federal agencies are that they are maintained in onsite vaults, offsite storage, and backup tapes, or by microfilming the important records. The data in these records can be retrieved easily at a later time. The cons are the challenges involved in maintaining the records effectively in a printed and electronic form, and the cost involved in preserving these records is huge.
In my opinion the record keeping database must support, maintain and protect the individual’s or organization’s security, reliability, secrecy, and proper access, as well as their agreement with appropriate legal and ethical requirements.
Ans 5: A creation with an application of mind is referred to as intellectual property and the creator is given a special right for the creation for a certain period of time. The protection of digital intellectual property is important in this internet era as it is easy to duplicate the creation without the creator’s permission. In my opinion the technology-based protection is more important than the strict copyright laws as technology-based protection provides instant blocking of copying or downloading from the internet. Not all users who download from internet are aware of breaking the password or encrypted files. Any material released on internet must be password protected so that it becomes impossible to break it easily. Enforcing strict copyright laws does not induce fear in the users as many people neglect these laws and continue copying from the internet and it is difficult to trace such people. The protection of software and the intellectual property is the responsibility of the organizations that develop them and the strict copyright laws can only support these properties.
Ans 6: The employment laws state that employee monitoring is legal; however it is a debate as to how ethical the monitoring system is? Organizations monitor the employees to safeguard the proprietary information and protect the employee. On the other hand the employees feel that monitoring causes stress and low morale. The terms “ethics” and “morality” and cognate terms like “ethical” and “moral” are considered equal (Waluchow, 2003). A few ethical issues that have led to employee monitoring are, an increase in downloading sexual content, uploading inappropriate images, online trading and shopping, and playing games during the work hours. The organizations monitor the employees email, wiretapping and eavesdropping on phone conversations, computer monitoring and surveillance by video (Reynolds, 2011). The organizational policies must be transparent and the employees must be made aware that they are being monitored for any violations in the company policy.
References
Reynolds, George W, (2011). Ethics in Information Technology, 4th ed. Cengage Learning
Waluchow, Wilfrid J, (2003). The Dimensions of Ethics: An Introduction to Ethical Theory,
Broadview Press.
