Exam 2: The Role of Ethics in Decision Making

The "veil of ignorance" means that to think ethically you must:

Courts often use a balancing test when examining whether a party acted with due care in negligence cases.

For Immanuel Kant, to be ethical requires that a person act:

In which of the following situations is there a conflict of interest?

Even with a code of ethics, why is it important for top management in a corporation to set an example for ethical conduct?

Which of the following is credited with this expression: "[T]he theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property."

How would a formalist and a consequentialist view an employer secretly monitoring an employee's e-mail messages?

Opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in an attempt to prevent its passing, inserted a prohibition against _____ discrimination in employment, thinking that such discrimination was acceptable and that many others agreed with them.

Economist Adam Smith believed that humans could not look beyond self-interest.

What are the purposes of permitting self-regulation, and what potential issues may arise from letting certain industries police themselves?

Hannah Arendt believed that immoral behavior was often the result of:

Looking into the initial intentions of parties to a business contract evidences consequentialism.

It is unlikely that a business or professional organization would look to law or legislation when drawing up an internal code of ethical conduct.

According to Rawls, it is important to forget our own age, gender, race, intelligence, strength, wealth, or social status when determining just actions. What is the purpose of this?

Why should businesses promote openness in communication?

A formalist would conclude that a business's secret monitoring of employees is ethical if the monitoring reveals a significant number of crimes or malfeasance, providing a net good for the business.

The values-based management approach to business ethics illustrates consequentialism through its emphasis on:

The foundation of John Rawls's social contract theory is a firm belief that self-knowledge and self-promotion will create the most just society.

Trevor works at Trevsinc, a company that has been buying from Stigg Corp for years. Stigg Corp., a private corporation, has been doing very well recently, and will soon go public, selling its stock on the open market. As appreciation for his years of loyal service, Stigg Corp. offers Trevor the option of buying a large block of stock at a low fixed price before the initial public offering. However, over the last few months, Trevor has been concerned that the management of Stigg Corp. may not be acting ethically, and that the success may be because of the management's risky actions. What ethical issues must Trevor consider?

Within a strict utilitarian system of ethics, an action is considered unethical if it is inherently wrong, regardless of the circumstances under which the action is taken.