Ethical Theories and Theft - Research Proposal Example

RUNNING HEAD: Ethical Theories and Theft Ethical theories and Theft: A Two-Part Project BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION HERE HERE YOUR TUTOR HERE DATE HERE Ethical Theories and Theft: A Two-Part Project Introduction The 10 different ethical theories describe certain moral and philosophical behaviors which guide a person toward life’s decision-making. A person should use more than one ethical philosophy in life and should utilize each theory according to unique life situations. Drawing on these 10 ethical theories, the question as to whether it is ever ok to steal can be answered. Various arguments regarding the acceptability as theft, from a moral and philosophical perspective, are identified in this paper. It is being argued that it might actually be acceptable to steal, however only in very extenuating circumstances. Part I – 10 Ethical Theories The 10 ethical theories highlight certain behaviors and personality characteristics which should help to assist in guiding rational, wise and socially-proper decision-making. Ethics also start with generosity (Chodron, 1993). In some respects, these guiding ethical principles represent basic human values such as integrity, honesty, loyalty and fairness. Should a person only use one in life? That would be impractical in today’s society where complex social interaction occurs often and, in professional environments, unique scenarios with clients and customers occur. From this point of view, integrity and honesty would go hand-in-hand both in social relationships (if a person wants a healthy one) and in the professional or office environment. Relying on the virtues of only a single moral and ethical principle such as fairness while forgetting other aspects of moral living, such as being truthful in the local community, can lead to poor community relationships. If the community perceives you as dishonest, they will likely forget about your abundance of fairness. Some might disagree and, out of their own perceptions about the importance of social loyalty, defend the person who only values fairness and say that this single virtue makes the person an upstanding moral citizen. In this situation, it might be that the person who is arguing in favor of the one-sided philosopher who, themselves, hold strongly onto one social value such as loyalty. Having a one-sided philosophy of living with only one concept of importance might create a distorted view of right and wrong. Others might also argue against the dangers of having a one-sided philosophy, such as clinging to fairness above all other of the 10 ethical principles, gives a person focus and a goal to achieve personal excellence. This argument might offer that too much ethical thinking on too many concepts might create cognitive overload and create long-term effects like depression or anxiety. However, despite this potential argument from those who believe in only using one theory, this is somewhat irrational thinking which could use a refresher course on the merits of diverse philosophical and moral guidance. In terms of ranking, there should be some hierarchy to rank them as some of the concepts are actually more important than others. For example, concern for others would guide a person to treat others in the same manner they, themselves, wish to be treated. It would be a foundational principle where causing no harm is the basis of life philosophy. Would promise-keeping, as another of the ethical principles, be important if the person had a disregard for ensuring the care and well-being of others in their own community? In order of importance, the ethical principles should be ranked as concern for others, accountability, honesty, integrity, pursuit of excellence, respect for others, civic duty, honesty, loyalty, and promise-keeping. Why, for example, did respect for others only rank in the middle of the hierarchy? This is because there are moral and ethical situations which are quite apparent and individuals require intervention to remind them of their moral and ethical obligations. In this situation, it is morally and philosophically unacceptable to allow the individual to create a situation when it is obvious it will not reach a positive outcome. Respect for others then takes a proverbial back seat to accountability and integrity. There are definitely different situations which will require different ethical principles. A business situation involving difficult clients would involve respect for others, integrity, honesty, promise-keeping and pursuit of excellence. This is because the business negotiation is going to require that the outcome of the agreement is fulfilled as expected and that the transaction will be truthful and without deceit. This is part of respecting others in the business world and striving to maintain quality relationships in the process. Eliminating even one of these ethical principles from the business environment would likely lead to mistrust and broken business relationships. Guidelines for promoting a specific ranking system would be virtually impossible because the majority of situations which occur in today’s complicated world are unique. For example, a person in a situation which requires a secret to be kept even withholding the contents of that secret could affect others negatively would be an example where loyalty becomes less-important than promise-keeping. Another individual might experience a situation where the workplace manager is stealing money and has offered a portion of the heist in pursuit of silence. In this situation, the ethical and moral situation would require abandoning a potential long-term professional relationship in pursuit of loyalty toward the company. This suggests that some of the 10 ethical principles are interchangeable and serve multiple purposes for multiple scenarios. There are really no better methods for using ethical theories, which is largely why they are called theories, and why philosophy has remained a unique form of study. In each ethical situation there is going to be the need to draw on the many merits of each ethical principle in a way that best suits both the social expectation for morality and the individual perspective on what separates right versus wrong. There really is no correct answer in this area of study. Part II – The Acceptability of Theft The question arises as to whether it is ever ok to steal, based on moral and philosophical beliefs and values. It might actually be ok to steal in extenuating circumstances when an individual is facing a life-threatening situation or requires immediate access to something which will prevent negative consequences. For example, a woman who was evicted from her home after her husband died with no life insurance is left homeless and poverty-stricken. Left to care for her children on the streets, one of her children develops a terrible cough. After multiple appeals to various agencies to assist and for fear of the child developing worsening conditions, she enters the retail store and steals her medication. This would be an acceptable moral situation in which theft is justified. Legal experts would certainly disagree and offer that theft is unacceptable by any measure under the law. Legal experts would likely argue that the woman should not have gotten herself in that situation in the first place (having no similar personal experience to offer compassion) and simply state that the law’s the law. However, most of these individuals are generally looking for ways to ensure the short-term profitability of companies and the woman requiring medicine represented a threat to the stability of the business profit margin. Looking at this situation from a legal perspective makes the woman and her child have no real relevance other than protecting business wealth. This does not represent loyalty toward the woman or caring about others as part of a 10 ethical principle-minded system of justice. Consumers might also say that it is not fair for someone to get away with stealing much-needed medicine because it forces them to pay more money for products when businesses lose sales from theft. Many businesses highlight their loss prevention efforts and speak about the impact it has on the company budget and, sometimes, these costs are passed on to other consumers. However, the buyers who are suggesting that the woman has no right to simply take her much-needed medicine, as an absolute last resort, is also only concerned about issues of personal loyalty. This person who would argue against the woman’s right to steal likely feel their own values on loyalty, integrity, and civic duty have been compromised by the woman’s theft. This is not a morally-sound attitude. Those who believe the woman was justified for her theft of the medicine might also say that the systems designed to protect people like her should automatically step in and prevent such disasters from occurring in the first place. They might place the blame on the government’s role in breaching civic duty and loyalty by not ensuring that the woman had a quality roof over her head and a morsel of food to feed her children, who are likely still dealing with their father’s death. In this situation the woman and her children become an issue of moral integrity and concern for others. Still another group arguing in favor of the woman’s theft actions might suggest that her theft is acceptable as it kept a financial burden off of the medical community. It is relatively common knowledge that many people go to the hospitals without insurance, and not pay the bills, which gives others in the community higher prices for health care services. In this situation, the woman might have stolen the pharmaceutical products to avoid being a burden on the health care system by taking the child in for free emergency room service knowing she could never pay the bill. This argument in favor of the woman’s theft is making an accurate point: With the high price of health care and the labor costs attached to doctor and other staff payroll, is the $6.00 medication more criminal than taking the child in for $2,500 (or more!) of health care services which will never be paid or acknowledged? Further, this person will carry the stigma of a poor credit record if she cannot pay her bills which will impact her ability to land a quality job and get her and her family out of poverty. In this situation, there is no opportunity to even consider moral and ethical principles, for the woman who stole the product, regarding promise-keeping or striving for excellence as she is constantly worried about the health of her children. Those who argue for leniency might also remember that, despite the fact that the woman tried to remove the burden from hospital budgets, she forgot issues of personal accountability. Even though the woman was saving the life of her child, she is still responsible for taking the actions she did. In the long run, it might be argued that once the child is well the woman should be given consequences for taking something which did not belong to her. This objection would be sound except that the punishment given to the woman would create so many other negative outcomes, such as the children being taken to foster environments or being split apart as a family unit. In this situation the moral and ethical issue is whether the short-term gains of a better environment would outweigh the long-term gains of being separated from trusted family members. In nearly all instances, due to the complexity of the theft situation described, all 10 ethical principles would seem to apply. The woman is justified in her decision to take the medicine assuming that her efforts to find alternative help, therefore sustaining her responsibilities regarding civic duty, were sought. Basic concepts such as concern for others and fairness should be the moral guiding principles which call for leniency when the medication was stolen. Of course this is only a personal perspective and others might argue that this is not solid wisdom and argue strongly in favor of a different ethical and moral rationale. This is likely why ethics and morality are subject to a philosophical category when classifying these principles because there is generally no solid right or wrong in many situations. Ethics cannot be defined in any universal way (Society for Scientific Values, 2003). Conclusion Determining which specific value of the 10 ethical principles is most important is very subjective, meaning that it cannot be easily explained. Unique situations are going to require different moral and ethical behaviors based on the content of the scenario. The basic foundation of human relationships, such as caring for others, should be a universal principle as it is what binds the human relationship together. Without basic caring there would be no substance behind any friendships or relationships and they would likely not last well into the future. It was decided that different situations call for different ethical guidance where some aspects of the 10 principles are replaced with other moral behaviors. Loyalty toward one person can switch when loyalty toward a different individual is required to secure the safety or integrity of a specific situation or individual. Accountability can be a sound moral value when put into a position of high executive power and must make decisions which impact a wide variety of community members and staff members. This inability to properly classify different moral and ethical values is likely due to the fact that there is no one, universal set of values by which societies can measure themselves. For example, in China it might be morally ok to eat puppies for dinner while in the United States such behaviors would violate perceptions of civic duty and concern for others. In Jamaica it might be morally acceptable to speak about private matters in the households of community members however in Zimbabwe such situations would lead to imprisonment. The whole point is that philosophy in terms of moral and ethical rightness is very individualistic and no singular definition is available to decide which is most important. Finally, in relation to whether it is ok to steal, when the situation is extreme it would seem that no moral or ethical code has been broken when the individual steals inexpensive medicine to save a life. This effort saved community members a great deal of money from an already-overpriced health service system and also places blame onto the government for not assisting her with her needs. Moral and ethical situations appear to have multiple definitions and different opportunities as well for using many of the 10 ethical principles to guide correct decision-making. Theft of a pharmaceutical product in the face of violating the highest-ranking moral principle, concern for others, would represent a more significant breach of moral character than the act of taking the medicine itself. Simply allowing the child to waste away when the fault of their poverty is not their own would be unethical even if it meant for the woman to abandon her responsibilities in civic duty. Many would likely disagree, based on their own ethical guidelines, however it might be why cultures have a difficult time, today, finding common ground due to misconceptions about what constitutes right versus wrong. This is likely why the study of ethics and morality is always being researched, simply because there is a lack of universal definition regarding what actually constitutes moral and ethical responsibility. Regardless of this lack of universal definition, there are always going to be questions linked to whether moral behaviors can actually be classified in both specific hierarchical order and what measure of morality is socially acceptable. References Chodron, Thubten. (1993). “The far-reaching attitude of ethics: Part 1 of 2”. Dharma Friendship Foundation. Accessed 9 Dec 2008 from http://thubtenchodron.org/GradualPathToEnlightenment/LR_094_Ethics_15Nov93.pdf Society for Scientific Values. (2003). “Editorial: Is Scientific Community Different?” Online Newsletter. Accessed 10 Dec 2008 from http://www.scientificvalues.org/newsaugust2003.html Read More