This document provides information on ethical decision making, including defining ethical decision making, outlining a framework and process for ethical decision making, and discussing three ethics theories. It describes ethical decision making as a cognitive process that considers ethical principles, rules and virtues to guide decisions. A seven-step ethical decision making process is outlined that involves identifying an ethical problem, collecting information, evaluating alternatives, making a decision, acting, and reviewing the action. Utilitarian, rights and justice perspectives are three ethics theories discussed.

1. ETHICAL
DECISION
MAKING
C A R O L I N E R E B E C C A D

2. TOPICS
• Ethical Dilemmas
• Define: Ethical Decision Making
• Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making
• Ethical Decision-Making Process
• Three Ethics Theories

3. ETHICAL DILEMMAS
• Ethics is about choices which matter, and choices which matter are dilemmas.― Martin
Cohen
• An Ethical dilemma is a complex situation where ethical principles or values are in
conflict.
Examples:
• To whom do I have a duty— self, family, friends, workers, investors, consumers, future
generation, and so on?
• What is a fair or justice resolution—is fairness or justice based on everyone
receiving equal shares, or more to those who merit or have earned it

4. • When faced with a difficult ethical dilemma, we need ethical decision making ability for
resolve it.
• It helps one determine the right course of action or the right thing to do and also
enables one to analyze whether another’s decisions or actions are right or good.

5. ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
• In the context of decision making, your ethics are your personal standards of right
and wrong.
• They are your basis for making ethically sensitive decisions.

6. • Ethical decision making is a cognitive process that considers various ethical principles,
rules, and virtues or the maintenance of relationships to guide or judge individual or
group decisions or intended actions.

7. FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING
ETHICAL DECISION MAKING

8. ETHICAL ISSUE INTENSITY
• Ethical issue intensity can be defined as the relevance or importance of an ethical issue
in the eyes of the individual, work group, and/or organization.
• Ethical issue intensity reflects the ethical sensitivity of the individual or work group that
faces the ethical decision making process.

9. INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
• Gender―women are generally “more ethical” than men.
• Education or work experience―the more education or work experience that one has,
the better he or she is at ethical decision making.
• Nationality―cultural appears to be significant in affect of ethical decision making.

10. INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
• Age ―the older you are, the more ethical you are.
• Locus of control ― external control vs. Internal control.
– external control, see themselves as going with the flow because that’s all they can do.
– internal control, believe that they control the events in their lives by their own effort
and skill

11. ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS
• The organization’s values often have greater influence on decisions than a person’s
own values.
• The more ethical employees perceive an organization’s culture to be, the less likely they
are to make unethical decisions.

12. OPPORTUNITY
• Opportunity describes the conditions in an organization that limit or permit ethical or
unethical behavior.
• Opportunity results from conditions that either provide rewards, whether internal or
external, or fail to erect barriers against unethical behavior.

13. ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
PROCESS

14. 01 IDENTIFY THE ETHICAL PROBLEM
The decision maker must be able to determine:
• If there is a possible violation of an important ethical principle, societal law, or
organizational standard or policy
• If there are potential consequences that should be sought or avoided that emanate
from an action being considered to resolve the problem.

15. 02 COLLECT RELEVANT INFORMATION
• The decision maker should seek to gather as much information as possible about which
rights are being forsaken and to what degree.
• A consequential focus would prompt the decision maker to attempt to measure the
type, degree, and amount of harm being inflicted or that will be inflicted on others.

16. 03 EVALUATE THE INFORMATION
• Once the information has been collected, the decision maker must apply some type of
standard or assessment criterion to evaluate the situation.
• The decision maker might use one of the predominant ethics theories—utilitarianism,
rights, or justice.

17. 04 CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES
The decision maker needs to generate a set of possible action alternatives, such as:
• confronting another person’s actions,
• seeking a higher authority, or
• stepping in and changing the direction of what is happening.

18. 05 MAKE A DECISION
• The decision maker should seek the action alternative that is supported by the
evaluation criteria used in Step 3.
• A decision maker selects a course of action that is supported by all the ethics theories
or other evaluation criteria used in the decision- making process.

19. 06 ACT OR IMPLEMENT
• The decision maker, if truly seeking to resolve the problem being considered, must take
action.
• Once the action alternatives have been identified in Step 4 and the optimal response is
selected in Step 5, the action is taken in Step 6.

20. 07 REVIEW THE ACTION
• Once the action has been taken and the results are known, the decision maker should
review the consequences of the action.
• If the optimal resolution to the problem is not achieved, the decision maker may need
to modify the actions being taken or return to the beginning of the decision-making
process

21. THREE ETHICS THEORIES
The ethical decision-making process that applies three predominant ethics theories:
1. Utilitarian perspective
2. Rights perspective
3. Justice perspective

22. UTILITARIAN PERSPECTIVE
The decision maker considers the consequences or out-comes of an action and seeks to
maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of those affected by the decision.

23. RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE
• A decision maker who considers a rights perspective would consider the entitlements
of those affected by the decision.

24. JUSTICE PERSPECTIVE
• A justice perspective may focus on either the equitable distribution of the benefits and
costs resulting from the plant closing and employee layoffs (distributive justice)or the
maintenance of rules and standards(procedural justice).

25. THANK YOU