1. Making choices and exercising judgment.

Federico Buenrostro was the CEO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) from 2002 to 2008; Alfred Villalobos was a CalPERS board member from 1993 to 1995. Buenrostro created false documents that enabled Villalobos to make money as a placement agent between CalPERS and Apollo Global Management, a pension fundinvestment firm. The two were indicted in March 2013 for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud (among other charges). The CalPERS Web site is www.calpers.ca.gov.

a. Which school of ethical thought guided Buenrostro and Villalobos? Justify your response.

b. How would proponents of the other schools discussed in the chapter evaluate the ethics of their actions? Justify your response.

2. Which school of ethical thought is described in each of the following independent scenarios? Justify your choices. Reword each scenario so that it reflects a different school of ethical thought.

a. Sean was working with a group of three other students on a financial statement analysis project for his introductory financial accounting course. He told the other group members that he would do the entire project with minimal input from them to ensure the whole group got a good grade.

b. Lydia downloaded a solution to a graded homework problem in her AIS course from the Internet. She reasoned that doing so was ethical since it would give her a better grade when she presented the problem in class.

c. Nicole’s friend offered to share her intermediate accounting term paper with her; the paper had received an A when Nicole’s friend took the course. Nicole refused her friend’s offer, saying that cheating in any form is unethical.

d. Ruben felt that using his class notes for a closed-book exam contradicted the values he had grown up with, so he decided not to do so.