Business Ethics Research Paper Phase 1: (5%) A brief one page paper that identifies the unique ethical issue (topics to choose from are below), the ethical dilemma and the traditional theories (utilitarian, deontological, virtue, teleological) that will be used to suggest potential resolution of the dilemmas. Phase 2:  (30%) Required Elements of Final Project:          Using the information from Phase 1, students will thoroughly research the topic and define the ethical concerns in detail.          Using two of the traditional theories from week 2, suggest potential resolutions to the dilemma(s) Week 2 readings What Is the Relationship Between Business Ethics and Decision Making? Norman Bowie: a Kantian Approach to Business Ethics Terms In and Types of Ethical Theory          In the discussion of the resolution, include the impact that ethical relativism and globalization may have upon the suggested dilemma resolution. Relativism readings Ethical relativism Ethical Relativism and Business Theory of Ethical Relativism (Criticism of the theory of ethical relativism) Ethical Relativism discussion of points for and against theory Rules, Standards, and Ethics: Relativism Predicts Cross-National Differences in the Codification of Moral Standards Criticism of Ethical Relativism Ethical Relativism (Points Against the Theory) Effects of Globalization readings Distributive Justice Figures on the distribution of wealth in the world: Richest 1% of People Own Nearly Half of Global Wealth, says Report It's A "0.6%" World: Who Owns What Of The $223 Trillion In Global Wealth Wealth, Income, and Power The 147 Companies That Control Everything Who Controls the World? Resources for Understanding this Visualization of the Global Economy          Select the best resolution and explain in detail why. Required Formatting of Final Project: · This paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, and six to eight pages in length excluding the title page and reference page; · Title page; · Introductory paragraph and a summary paragraph; · Use headings to demarcate your discussion; · Write in the third person; · Use APA formatting for in-text citations and a reference page.  You are expected to paraphrase and not use quotes. Deductions will be taken when quotes are used and found to be unnecessary; · Submit the paper in the Assignment Folder. Please also read the Professors notes below Topics to choose from – Blue is main topic green is articles that relate to that topic 1. Snowden and the Ethics of Whistleblowing Whistleblowing: Redefining Ethics 2. Is Business Bluffing Ethical? Critique of Is Business Bluffing Ethical 3. Value-Led Business/Show me the money: How sustainability Creates Revenue at Bloomberg Harnessing the Power of Corporate Culture (Developing Leaders for a Sustainable Global Society). Lesson Four: The Ethical Dimension of Sustainability 4. When Robots Lie: How should we program computers to deceive? Unchartered Territory: When Innovatio ...

1. Business Ethics Research Paper
Phase 1: (5%)
A brief one page paper that identifies the unique ethical issue
(topics to choose from are below), the ethical dilemma and the
traditional theories (utilitarian, deontological, virtue,
teleological) that will be used to suggest potential resolution of
the dilemmas.
Phase 2: (30%)
Required Elements of Final Project:
Using the information from Phase 1, students will
thoroughly research the topic and define the ethical concerns in
detail.
Using two of the traditional theories from week 2,
suggest potential resolutions to the dilemma(s)
Week 2 readings
What Is the Relationship Between Business Ethics and Decision
Making?
Norman Bowie: a Kantian Approach to Business Ethics
Terms In and Types of Ethical Theory
In the discussion of the resolution, include the impact
that ethical relativism and globalization may have upon the
suggested dilemma resolution.
Relativism readings
Ethical relativism
Ethical Relativism and Business
Theory of Ethical Relativism (Criticism of the theory of ethical
relativism)
Ethical Relativism discussion of points for and against theory
Rules, Standards, and Ethics: Relativism Predicts Cross-
National Differences in the Codification of Moral Standards
Criticism of Ethical Relativism
Ethical Relativism (Points Against the Theory)

2. Effects of Globalization readings
Distributive Justice
Figures on the distribution of wealth in the world: Richest 1%
of People Own Nearly Half of Global Wealth, says Report
It's A "0.6%" World: Who Owns What Of The $223 Trillion In
Global Wealth
Wealth, Income, and Power
The 147 Companies That Control Everything
Who Controls the World? Resources for Understanding this
Visualization of the Global Economy
Select the best resolution and explain in detail why.
Required Formatting of Final Project:
· This paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, and six to
eight pages in length excluding the title page and reference
page;
· Title page;
· Introductory paragraph and a summary paragraph;
· Use headings to demarcate your discussion;
· Write in the third person;
· Use APA formatting for in-text citations and a reference
page. You are expected to paraphrase and not use quotes.
Deductions will be taken when quotes are used and found to be
unnecessary;
· Submit the paper in the Assignment Folder.
Please also read the Professors notes below
Topics to choose from – Blue is main topic green is articles that
relate to that topic
1. Snowden and the Ethics of Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing: Redefining Ethics

3. 2. Is Business Bluffing Ethical?
Critique of Is Business Bluffing Ethical
3. Value-Led Business/Show me the money: How sustainability
Creates Revenue at Bloomberg
Harnessing the Power of Corporate Culture (Developing
Leaders for a Sustainable Global Society).
Lesson Four: The Ethical Dimension of Sustainability
4. When Robots Lie: How should we program computers to
deceive?
Unchartered Territory: When Innovation Outpaces Regulation
Information Ethics (Picking up Where Laws Leave Off)
Ethics in the Provision and Use of IT for Business
These are some references from our reading material
Moral Universalism (Discussion of the classic philosophers on
the issue of universal morality)
Kant’s Moral Imperative (Telling the truth is universally
accepted)
Ethical Decision Making – Some Examples
Norman Bowie: a Kantian Approach to Business Ethics
Examples of Ethical Issues in Business
The Toughest Ethical Decision: Right vs. Right
A Framework for Thinking Ethically
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
Building the Business Case for Ethics (p. 3-9 only)
Truth in Ethics: Law vs. Ethics
Law and Ethics
Relationship Between Ethics and Law
Making an Ethical Decision
General Guidelines for Making Ethical Decisions
A Framework for Thinking Ethically

4. Values and culture in ethical decision making
Ethical Realism
Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions
Organizational/Business Ethics (What does it mean to the
organization to be ethical?)
Why it Pays to be Socially Responsible!
What Are the Major Ethical Issues Business People Face?
Ethical Leadership
Ethical Leadership (2)
Information from Professor on what the paper needs to have
Phase I – What is the “Ethical Issue”? Actions for Phase I –
What is the “Ethical Issue”?
Many of you struggled with identifying the ethical issue in the
factual scenario you wish to research for your Final Project.
What is an ethical issue?
The ethical issue is that which causes you moral difficulty about
a factual scenario. It is often a conflict in our values. This is
generally more than just asking whether one will – or will not –
do the “right” thing. For example, one does not generally have
an “ethical issue” about whether or not to kill someone. I have a
value for human life; I tend to live in harmony with that value
and do not kill people. No ethical issue here.
But consider a fact scenario where one person is threatening to
kill 100 other people and you have the ability to prevent him
from doing so, by killing him before he can carry out his threat.
The ethical “issue,” though, is still not whether or not I will kill
that person. That is phrased as a factual question, calling for a
determination of action: what will I do. My ultimate
determination as to what I will do will depend on my analysis of
the ethical issue.

5. The action contemplated is killing – an action generally held to
be wrong, immoral. The challenge presented here, though, is
that this generally-wrong action appears to be “good” and even
necessary in this particular case, because the person to be killed
will otherwise kill 100 people. Here, the value in conflict is the
value of human life itself. I value human life; here’s a situation
that is in conflict with that value, a situation I can apparently
dispose of by acting contrary to my value of human life. . . .
You begin to see traces of the ethical issue, I hope. Ethical
issues can be phrased in different ways, and can come from a
variety of viewpoints. I can view this as a straight question of
justification: does saving 100 lives justify killing one person,
who threatens those 100 lives? Alternatively, I can present the
ethical issue as a comparison of values: the ethical issue is then
seen as the difficult balance to be made between the value of
the life of one person and the lives of 100 people, if/when the
single person has wrongfully threatened the lives of the 100.
We could also view this as a conflict between the value of
human life and the value of public safety and/or protection.
The ethical issue changes again if the threat of the one against
the safety of the 100 is not a wrongful threat of violence, but a
threat that lies outside of his control (as, for example, from a
highly contagious disease). Here, to the question of the relative
values of life, we would add a value of compassion or
benevolence, in which we might view a further conflict as
arising out of a perceived moral responsibility not only to care
for the 100 who are still healthy, but to care also for the one
person who is so grievously ill (and who unwittingly presents
such a danger to the others). The ethical issue then becomes
how one may exercise mercy, care and benevolence toward the
one seriously ill, while yet also exercising due care for the
safety and welfare of the 100 others in the community who are
still healthy.

6. Ethical dilemmas consist of those difficult situations where it
appears that there is no one “good” choice that can be made,
ethically. This will often come about because the only available
choices are between two “wrong” options, morally (you can
either kill the poor unfortunate sick man or you can risk
infection of 100 healthy people), or it’s a choice between two
good - but mutually exclusive – options (you can either help
this one, or you can help that one, but you can’t help both.)
As you consider the case scenarios that you have proposed,
first, think through what the issues are. Is there a question of
respect for another’s autonomy? For another’s freedom/liberty?
Is there a question of justice? – whether under John Rawls’
theory of justice as fairness, or under another view of
distributive justice as either egalitarian, socialist, libertarian,
communist, or capitalist? Is there a question of a respect for
human dignity, let’s say, which is so often a hallmark of a
Kantian approach to situations where people are treated as
means to ends, rather than respected for their own human
agency.
Once you have sketched out the ethical issue, you should be
able to determine just what kinds of dilemmas could arise under
this unique ethical issue. To return to my illustration, we could
imagine dilemmas regarding the proper allocation of scarce
resources (medicines and the attention of medical personnel) as
between the sick and the well, or even as between the sick and
the sick! That dilemma will look very different if, for example,
the medical emergency is brought about by a single infected
person who is attempting to wield a plague as a weapon of
terror. Contrast this with the case of the single ill person who
became ill trying to help others in a foreign country – as we
have seen this year, dealing with American health care
personnel who have returned to the United State, infected with
the Ebola virus. In that situation, we might modify the ethical
issue to reflect the moral character of the person needing our

7. help, and to take notice of the justice and gratitude requirements
that have arisen.
From a business perspective, if I am considering a case in which
my company has been trying to develop a vaccine for Ebola, for
example, and the U.S. has been the subject of terrorism-type
attacks by which infected people are attempting to enter the
U.S. for purposes of starting a pandemic, and at least one of my
workers has been infected as the result of an attempt to destroy
our work developing the vaccine – there are a number of
different “ethical issues” I could focus on here. First, I would
look at the interested parties: myself, the corporation, the
shareholders, the stakeholders, the employees, the infected
employee, the terrorist(s), the United States, and U.S. citizens
generally. Who wants what, and why?
Here, the financial motive will probably fade into the
background pretty quickly, as the corporate shareholders (like
the stakeholders and the U.S. citizens generally) will
undoubtedly value their own lives over that of making money.
However, if we could quickly identify and quarantine infected
people, perhaps the profit motive might become more viable.
The ethical issues will then center on questions of freedom and
autonomy for those who are sick and/or who have been exposed
to the disease, in conflict with the value of preserving health
and safety in the general population.
Next, we will focus on what obligation we might have for care
of the sick. From the corporate side, what obligation might we
have to make available our limited (and unapproved/unpatented)
vaccine? Let’s assume that we know it works, but it is hard and
expensive to produce, only a limited supply is available, and we
have not yet undertaken the FDA approval process, so there are
questions of legal liability if something goes wrong, as well as
the prospect of publicizing our process, which may destroy the
trade secret approach we have been operating under, pending

8. FDA approval and patenting. Here, the ethical issues would
focus on whether financial constraints trump the value of human
life, and if so, which constraints? We might also focus on the
ethical issue of safety versus risk, as we attempt to balance
generally accepted safety regulations (and the FDA testing and
approval process) in the face of a current threat of death.
This will show us one very obvious possible dilemma: Our
coworker is ill and will in all likelihood die unless she receives
an injection of our miracle vaccine, which we know will work,
but which is not FDA approved. Federal law prohibits us from
dispensing the medication. If we do dispense the medication, we
will be in violation of federal law, and the doctor who dispenses
it may lose his license to practice. If we do not dispense it, our
coworker will die. This is a classic dilemma between two “bad”
choices.
Having chosen to dispense the vaccine, we have further ethical
issues to determine. Given a scarce resource and a threat of
losing intellectual property rights in the vaccine by advance
disclosure, who would we chose to receive the vaccine, if they
consented to receive it? Here, we might address the question of
the moral character of the people who are either sick or who
have been exposed to the disease as a way of determining our
proper response. Are they sick because they were trying to kill
others with their illness? Or, are they sick because of the
criminal act of another? Finally, are they sick because of their
act trying to help others who were sick?
Here, we might find the classic dilemma between two “good”
choices: we have an effective dose for only one person – and we
have two people who deserve to get it. The person who does not
get it will die. It is not possible to ‘split’ the dose. . . . It is a
“good” choice to give it to person A; it is a “good” choice to
give it to person B. But I cannot do both.
********************************************

9. I present these thoughts to you, to show you generally how to
approach ethical issues and the question of a dilemma. Also, to
show you that coming up with “The Issue” is not as
straightforward as you might think. At the same time, though,
an ethical issue is not obvious just from your factual scenario.
Ethics is a creative activity – with many different ways of
approaching and visualizing a problem. In your Final Project,
your assignment is to show how you have visualized and
approached a particular ethical issue. You must start by
verbalizing what that issue is, and what ethical dilemmas it can
lead to. Then, you will be able to research and analyze the best
ethical approach to resolving the issue and to acting in ways
that will best overcome the dilemma.
Please think about your factual scenario – and the ethical issues
– and then reason it out, in the way we have been practicing.
Reasoning these ideas through will be very different than trying
to “apply” ethical theories like rules or calculators that will, at
the very mention of their name, spit out the “ethical result”.
Kant (or Mills/Utilitarianism, or Aristotle/virtue ethics) will not
tell you what to do. Those ethical theories, however, will help
shape how you may think about what to do, and will help you
make valid arguments supporting your ethical analysis and
conclusion as to what you will do, and why.