This document discusses three theories of ethics - relativism, utilitarianism, and a business decision around transgender bathroom usage - in three paragraphs: 1) Relativism holds that ethics are relative to one's culture or feelings. It could help understand viewpoints but not evaluate right vs wrong. Applying it here, all opinions would be valued and a new restroom built for anyone. 2) Utilitarianism evaluates actions based on consequences. It aims to maximize overall good. Strengths include fairness and avoiding beliefs. Weaknesses are unknown consequences and results-based evaluations. Applying it, a universal restroom would be made to prevent legal issues from preferences. 3) A company saw transgender identification

1. THEORIES OF ETHICS
Tiereny Calvin

2. THE BUSINESS DECISION
• A pharmaceutical company started to see a rise in individuals identifying themselves
as transgender. Several employees became upset and felt like their privacy was
being invaded by sharing a restroom with the opposite sex that wasn’t surgically
classified as the same sex. Should the company make reasonable accommodations
to satisfy the upset employees or should the other employees be allowed to use
which ever restroom that they want?

3. RELATIVISM
• Ethical Relativism is a view that holds ethical values and judgements to one’s culture, society
or personal feelings. In this sense, ethics truly is simply a matter of opinion.
• Strengths: If it is correct, then at best business can help explicate the cultural or social values
that underlie our ethical judgements.
• Weakness: It can do little to evaluate decisions as right or wrong.
• If I were solving this business decision using relativism I would value all parties opinions
involved and simply build another restroom to accommodate anyone that wanted to use it
regardless of what they identify themselves as.

4. UTILITARIANISM
• Utilitarianism tells us that we can determine ethical significance of any action by looking to
the consequences of that act. It is typically identified with the policy of “maximizing the
overall good” in a slightly different version.
• Strengths: It’s fair since its basic principles are widely accepted. It does not require
acceptance of personal beliefs.
• Weakness: You never know all the consequences of the actions that you will decide and it is
determined by results alone.
• If I were making a business decision using this theory I would still make accommodations to
have a universal restroom to prevent any legal action that can occur from allowing
individuals to use whatever restroom they prefer based on what they identify themselves as
versus their sex.