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Applied Ethics

Philosophers, there are three types of ethics, meta-ethics deals with such questions as “What is the meaning of a good person?” Dr. De Mars said she was not smart enough to write about meta-ethics in this course.

Normative ethics are the study of standards for what is right or wrong, rules for acceptable behavior, which we have been discussing to this point. Applied ethics as one might guess from the name, involves applying the rules of ethical behavior to specific situations. One way of studying applied ethics is the use of "moral dillemmas".

A moral dilemma is when we are faced with two choices, both of which violate our ethical standards. For example, we are faced with hiring a relative who really needs a job and could be helped greatly by some work experience and development of job skills, and hiring the most qualified person. On the one hand, we believe it is right to help our relatives and we should treat our relatives better than other people. On the other hand, we believe it is only fair to hire the most qualified person. This particular moral dilemma is so common that we have nepotism rules to prevent it.

Ethical Dilemmas in Leadership
Should you honor informal agreements of your predecessor? If the previous project director had promised to hire a consultant who helped her write the grant that funds your project, should you hire that person?

What do you do when an influential person, e.g., a tribal council member, demands that you violate a procedure, for example, providing a travel advance to an employee when the policy clearly states no one gets paid until after travel.

It's easy to say that you need to honor procedures and do what is right, but what about if you need that job to support your children?

When do you suspend rules to show compassion, for example, no one is supposed to get more than 15 days leave each year but one of your employees has a child dying of cancer and needs to go to Minneapolis to the hospital.

When do you let employees know about future plans? If your grant does not get re-funded and people will be out of a job in six months, do you let them know now so they can look for work? Then how are you going to get the last six months of work done?

What do you do when you know one of your fellow managers is engaging in unethical behavior, e.g. taking tribal property home for personal us?. If a non-employee did this, it would be stealing. So, basically, this person is stealing from the tribe, but they are very highly placed.

When do you decide not to do business with a person or company because they are unethical, e.g. treat their employees unfairly, are abusive, come to work drunk, etc.?

You need to develop principles for dealing with ethical dilemmas before they happen. If possible, find ways to avoid ethical dilemmas, e.g., anti-nepotism policies, external audits of expenses.

It's personal..... Think of a time when you felt you were treated unethically. Please go to the Spirit Lake Forum and give an example of a personal experience with unethical treatment.