Professor Denis Collins
School of Business
Edgewood College
Madison, WI 53711
608-663-2878
dcollins@edgewood.edu
Tools and Surveys
Six Questions for Deriving a Moral Conclusion
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How should employees infuse moral reasoning in the process of
making business decisions? Ethical reasoning is just like any
other managerial problem-solving process. When confronting a
problem, managers typically list the available options and
determine which of the alternatives makes the most sense. Often,
the reasons that support one option are better than the reasons
that support others. The same decision-making process can be
applied to ethical reasoning.
Social philosophers have determined that
some ethical reasons are more morally acceptable than others.
For example, it has been long established that “doing to others
as you would want done to you” should take precedence over an
individual’s self-interests when these two ethical theories are
in conflict.
The ethics decision-making framework found
in Part II of Behaving Badly can help managers reach a
moral conclusion regarding the rightness or wrongness of any
decision. It provides a moral compass based on six questions
that can be applied to any business problem. Click on the "Six
Questions for Deriving a Moral Conclusion" and use it to address
an ethical issue at your organization.
Managers should also benchmark their organization’s ethical health. Click on the "Organizational Integrity Check-Up" to rate your organization against 25 best practices in ethics management.
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