This slide set identifies some of the crucial intersections of ethical tensions. It was designed to help generate discussions related to essential ethical questions.

1. SOME ETHICAL AXES
Raising Difficult Questions for
Workplace Ethics

2. Some Initial Ideas
• Ultimately ethical action reflects the
ANSWERS we rely on in making
ethical CHOICES.
• These answers are generated in
response to the QUESTIONS we
raise when confronted by a
situation that requires a choice to
act.
• The more questions we raise the
stronger can be our eventual
insight and, therefore, our answers,
our choices and our actions.

3. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
1. Principle focused vs Pragmatic
focused
2. Inner-directed vs Outer-directed
3. Individualism vs Communitarianism
4. Seeking Justice vs Seeking Mercy
5. Universalism vs Particularism
6. Individual Fairness vs Group Equity
7. Judgment vs Intuition
8. Discovering ethics vs Developing
Ethics
9. Rights/Responsibilities vs
Relationships/Responsiveness
10. Quantitative vs Qualitative
11. Truth as Fixed vs Truth as Variable

4. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Principle focused vs Pragmatic
focused
– Is it more important to stand for a
principle, or more important to achieve
what is practical?
– Is it more critical to combat for principle
(at whatever the cost) or to compromise
to achieve some of what we want (at
whatever the cost)?
– How do we discover our principles and
how do we discover what is pragmatic?
– What do we do when there are multiple
principles involved and multiple
perspectives on what is pragmatic?
Should we seek
to embrace a
principle?
Should we seek
to embrace what
is practical?

5. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Inner-directed vs Outer-directed
– Can I trust my inner-self to correctly
inform my ethical choices or do I need to
find a source outside of myself to
correctly inform my ethical choices?
– What happens if MY inner “voice”
informs my ethical choices in a way that
conflicts with the inner voices of others?
– If the locus of my ethical insights is inside
of me, do I listen to the voice of my
experience, my feelings, my passions, or
my reasoning?
– How confident am I that my inner voice
has a good track record of being right a
high percentage of the time?
Is the locus of what
is ethical found
outside of me?
Is the locus of
what is ethical
found in me?

6. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Individualism vs Communitarianism
– Is it more important do depend on MY
judgment about what is ethical, or to rely
on the community (group) perspective or
position?
– Is it more important to serve the needs of
the “one” or the “many?”
– Is individual conscience more reliable as
an ethical director than community
consensus?
– Is it more important for the individual to
“use” the community to serve his/her
purposes, or for the community to “use”
the individual for its purposes?
Should I focus my
ethical choices on
the community?
Should I focus
my ethical
choices on the
individual?

7. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Seeking Justice vs Seeking Mercy
– What course of action is most likely
to bring restoration to the one
offended – punishment or
forgiveness?
– What course of action is most likely
to bring restoration to the offender –
punishment or forgiveness?
– Must forgiveness always mean
pardon from all consequences of
wrong doing?
– By what criteria should justice
determine punishment consistent
with the wrong suffered?
Is it most critical to
offer forgiveness of
wrong doing?
Is it most critical
to punish wrong
doing?

8. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Universalism vs Particularism
– What should weigh more in our ethical
decisions – principles and
perspectives that apply to a broad
range of ethical choices, or responding
to the unique and particular elements
of a situation?
– What does it mean to be fair – treating
everyone the same, or treating each
person different?
– Which is more important in ethical
decision making – consistent
application of principles, or creative
response to the situation?
– How do we avoid two extremes –
allowing universalism to lead us to
blind us to the situation, or allowing
particularism to blind us to standards?
Should we focus on
identifying and responding to
what is unique in a situation?
Should we focus on
identifying and applying
universal truths to a situation?

9. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Individual Fairness vs Group Equity
– How might we resolve the tension
when meeting the need for individual
fairness conflict with meeting the
need for group equity – that is, when
the ethical response for the
individual and the ethical response
for the group (community) are not
mutually compatible?
– Because groups are often diverse,
how do we determine what is
equitable for all group members and
interests?
Should we focus on serving the
individual’s ethical interests?
Should we focus serving the
group’s ethical interests?

10. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Judgment vs Intuition
– Is rational analysis ALWAYS a better
guide to ethical decision making than
experienced intuition – is the head
always a better guide to achieving
ethical outcomes than the heart or
soul?
– Are there ethical issues that we can
sense better than we can analyze –
for instance, motivation and
character?
– When they clash, which should
trump the other – what we think, or
what we feel?
Should we rely primarily on
experienced intuition to lead us
to make ethical choices?
Should we rely primarily on
rational thinking to lead us to
make ethical choices?

11. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Discovering ethics vs Developing
Ethics
– Are there ethical “truths” that operate
in every situation that require us to
carefully and systematically uncover
and apply those truths?
– Is each situation ethically unique
requiring is to fabricate an ethical
response?
– Is it more important to discover the
“ideal” response, or the develop the
response that seems to work best in
the particular situation?
Is every ethical situation unique,
demanding a creative response
that shapes what is ethical?
Are there inherent and enduring
ethical rights and wrongs that we
need to search for and identify in
every ethical situation?

12. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Rights/Responsibilities vs
Relationships/Responsiveness
– Should we emphasize duty and
responsibility in making ethical
decisions, or loving and responding
to the relational dynamics?
– Is it more important to determine
what we OWE to each other, or how
we could CARE for each other?
– Is an ethical community enhanced by
serving justice, or offering mercy?
Are ethical choices best made with attention
to preserving the relationships and being
responsive to those involved?
Are ethical choices best made with
attention to the rights and
responsibilities of those involved?

13. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Quantitative vs Qualitative
– In understanding an ethical situation,
should we weigh facts more than
feelings – what can be known
objectively more than what can be
sensed subjectively?
– Should we place greater emphasis
on data, or on intuitive insight, when
making ethical choices?
– Are “facts” always what they seem in
ethical situations?
– In ethical situations, is the subjective
always a less reliable path to justice
than the objective – can the heart
know things that the head cannot?
Are ethical choices best informed
by focusing on what can be felt
and known subjectively?
Are ethical choices best informed
by focusing on what can be
measured or weighed objectively?

14. Each axis will raise different ethical
questions
• Truth as Fixed vs Truth as Variable
– In ethical situations is truth
something we discover, or
something we design?
– How do we resolve ethical situations
when two or more people disagree
on what is true?
– Is the truth found outside of the
situation and the observers, or inside
the situation and the observers?
– In ethical situations should we weigh
more the truths we can see and
touch, or the truths we can feel and
understand subjectively?
In ethical situations is “the truth”
something that we create
subjectively or experientially?
In ethical situations is “the truth”
something that exists knowably
and objectively?