MODULE 1
1.0 WHAT IS ETHICS? 1.1 IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
• Ethics or moral philosophy can be provisionally described as the • ETHICS is a set of rules that allows us to say right from wrong, good
empirical study of moral decisions. (how do human persons ought to from the bad.
act?)
• ETHICS is all about decisions.
• The concept is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which may mean
tradition, habit, character, or attitude. (what is right conduct and what • The virtues of intelligence, bravery, patience, and justice guide ethical
is a good life?) decision-making as they provide the basis for rational decisions when
faced with an ethical dilemma.
• There is no single absolute definition of ethics
1. Through ethics people can determine the difference between right from
• Moreover, ethics is a systematic analysis of the nature of human wrong, good and bad
actions.
2. people can eliminate actions that do not conform to what is right
• Ethics is not only about on how we act on something, it also about the
goodness of the people 3. people will be very careful to the actions and decisions to make
• Ethics is divided into NORMATIVE AND META-ETHICS. 4. people will not be disturbed of the internal and external factors of not doing
the right thing
• NORMATIVE ETHICS, which concerns human behavior in general, is to
address our questions about the essence of human behavior. 5. Establish good habits of characters of a person
“DO GOOD AT ALL TIMES!” 6. Come up to rational decisions in facing an ethical dilemma
(Ex. security guard) 7. It makes a person responsible in the family, school and society
There are two fields of normative ethics: MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND APPLIED 8. A person becomes sensitive to the needs of others more than himself or
ETHICS herself
MORAL PHILOSOPHY (moral ethics)
1.2 THE DIFFERENCES OF MORAL AND NON-MORAL STANDARDS AND
What human being must do or how human being should be
CHARACTERISTICS OF MORAL STANDARDS
APPLIED ETHICS
• MORAL STANDARDS refer to the guidelines we have on the types of
It is the actual application of ethical or moral theories acts that we find to be morally permissible and morally unacceptable.
• META-ETHICS is a discipline that relies on meaning. (Ex. taking • Promote the common good, that is, the welfare and well-being of
someone's life.) human beings, animals, and the environment.
• NORMATIVE ETHICS “DO GOOD AT ALL TIMES!” Several characteristics of moral standards as mentioned by Velasquez (2012)
• META-ETHICS “WHAT IS GOOD?” 1. Moral standards entail serious harm or benefit
2. Moral standards are not determined by authority figures The above definitions characterized moral dilemma or ethical dilemma as:
3. Moral standards should be adopted over other values, including self- • Making an option to one moral value over the other;
interest.
• A situation where moral values are equally significant;
4. Moral standards are focused on objective considerations.
• A scenario where a person has a strong moral reason in action, but not
5. Moral standards are perceived to be universal. equally strong moral reason in acting in another way;
• NON-MORAL STANDARDS, on the contrary, apply to laws which are not • A state where a person should morally do one, two, or more and have
related to social or legal considerations. difficulty in deciding any of those conflicting choices.
- Examples of non-moral standards are the following: etiquette and
code of professional ethics, etc.
2.1 THREE LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMAS
A Train Chain of the Development of Moral Standards
1. ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICAL OR MORAL DILEMMA
There are common ethical issues in the organization such as;
1. Unethical leadership/bad leadership behavior.
2. Toxic workplace culture.
3. Discrimination and harassment/ Peril of employee favoritism.
4. Unrealistic and conflicting goals
MODULE 2 5. Use of the organization’s technology, social media use, technology, and
privacy concerns.
WHAT ARE MORAL DILEMMAS
6. Business travel ethics.
WHAT IS DILEMMA?
2. INDIVIDUAL MORAL DILEMMA
A dilemma is a situation where a person is forced to choose between two or
more conflicting options, neither of which is acceptable. As mentioned by Smith (2018), individual ethical or moral dilemma pertains to
a situation where individuals confront with a number of factors such as peer
2.0 DEFINITION OF MORAL DILEMMAS pressure, personal financial position, an economic and social status
• A moral dilemma is a situation in which a decision-maker must give 3. STRUCTURAL MORAL DILEMMA
preference to one moral principle over another (Kvalnes, 2019)
There are three concepts in the structural moral dilemma to consider namely:
• A moral dilemma is a situation in which people assume that they
should morally do one thing and that they should morally do another (1) Differentiation vs. Integration
thing, and occasionally a third thing or even a fourth thing, but they're • The conflict between the distribution of jobs and the organization of
not doing any of these mutually contradictory choices together. (Kurie numerous activities generates a classic dilemma.
& Albin 2007)
(2) Lack of Clarity vs. Lack of Creativity
• When employees are not clear about what they are expected to do,
they often adapt their tasks to personal interests instead of system-
wide goals that often lead to problems.
(3) Excessive Autonomy vs. Excessive Interdependence
• When individuals or groups are too independent, they are always
isolated.
