Assessment instructions

The intention

The intention behind this assessment task is to enhance your ability to think through situations in which you face ethical dilemmas or temptations, to appreciate and apply various ethical concepts, and to articulate your thoughts in a way that is well considered, nuanced, respectful and persuasive. You will probably find some of the required reading for the first four weeks to be very helpful as you formulate your thoughts. But the main motivation behind this task is not to get you simply studying ethics, but to get you actually doing ethics. In the work that you submit for the assessment task you are welcome to carefully cite lots of scholarly articles if you wish, but you will notice that the marking criteria actually doesn't require any references at all. The main challenge is to be clear, thoughtful, engaging and persuasive.

The assessable work

The work that you submit for formal assessment will be comprised of an answer to one of the ethical dilemmas found below, along with a rejoinder to an answer posted by another student. The first answer that you post to the discussion forum must be 400-650 words long; the rejoinder(s) that you submit for formal assessment must also be 400-650 words long; and in total, your answer and rejoinder must add up to between 800 and 1300 words. This word count should not include the post you are responding to.

The process to follow

Once you have read each of the four cases found below, think about each of them and try drafting up an answer to one of them (in 400-650 words). As you do so, bear in mind the marking criteria for answers as given in the table further below. You will probably find it helpful to discuss your answer with some of your friends, colleagues, or family members. Once you are truly satisfied with your answer, post your answer in the 'Navigating ethical dilemmas' discussion forum.

If you wish to do so, you are welcome to post several answers in the discussion forum. Be aware, however, that the answer that you submit for formal assessment must be the first answer that you post to the forum. And that first answer must be posted in the 'Navigating ethical dilemmas' forum by 12am (midnight) on Sunday 13th of November, at the latest. As soon as you have posted your first answer, you will be automatically granted access to see all the answers to that dilemma that other students have posted. Unfortunately, however, you won't automatically be granted access to see all the other students' answers to the other three dilemmas. So to gain access to the answers posted by other students to those other three dilemmas, please go to each of those three other questions in forum and reply to them by simply posting the words "Now posting to gain access to other students' answers."

After you have read some of the answers posted by other students, choose at least one such answer to which you will write a rejoinder. In order to identify the most suitable answer(s) to which you may prepare a rejoinder, bear in mind that one of the marking criteria for rejoinders relates to making a 'worthwhile contrast'. In other words, you will be rewarded more if your rejoinder contributes something different from the view held by the individual whose answer is being addressed. So, it can often be a good idea to focus on answers with which you disagree.

Also, you want your rejoinder to "engage and persuade the individual whose answer is being addressed". So even though you may disagree with the answer to which you are responding, it is important to demonstrate civility in the way that you respond, along with a sound understanding of their point of view. Your assessable rejoinder must be posted to the 'Navigating ethical dilemmas' forum by 12am (midnight) on Sunday 20th of November. The work that you submit for formal assessment (i.e., comprised of your answer and rejoinder) must also be submitted by 12am (midnight) on Sunday 20th of November.

The four cases:

Dilemma 1: Minotaur

Juliet is the manager at a store, Galldi, that belongs to a big name clothing chain. Each store has a set floor plan that the managers are required to follow. This is set by a specialist who will be flown out and review the store size and space every two years and come up with a layout that will maximise store sales. After this specialist has been through Juliet's store, the layout is set, and Juliet quickly realises it is a bit of a maze leading from the front entrance to the change room. The customer now needs to traverse almost the entire store before being able to get to the change room. It is also very narrow, restricting wheelchair access and blocking line of sight from the point of sale to some of the most valuable small items (which are commonly targets for shoplifters in this store). Further, deliveries can no longer be placed near storage and the staff now have to traverse this maze with heavy boxes in hand to get them to their proper place. In short, Juliet finds the new layout disruptive, predatory, and generally an unethical hindrance to customers and employees alike..

After two weeks of this new layout Juliet has had enough, she requests from head office that she be permitted to change the layout as she sees fit, citing her concerns about shoplifting, wheelchair access, and OH&S concerns from the added heavy lifting. Juliet receives a very short response politely declining this request, as it would not be optimal, while leaving her concerns completely unaddressed. She appeals this several times and is similarly rejected with progressively less polite responses.

The only security cameras in the store focus on the point of sale and the entrance, so management would not know if the layout had changed. Juliet considers going over her bosss head and changing the floor plan herself for the sake of customers, staff, and preventing theft, but this would mean she is technically not doing her assigned job.

Question: What do you think Juliet should do in this situation, and why?

Dilemma 2: Pied Piper

A disability support business is going through a massive budget re-evaluation, and employees are having their hours reduced. Disability support is a business that depends on the employees developing good working relationships with the clients, and when an employee leaves it is not uncommon for the client to follow them to their new place of employment. Therefore, in order to stop staff/client poaching the business has put a provision in each employees contract that should they leave this business they agree to not work in disability support within a 50km radius (which covers the whole town in which they live) for at least 2 years. Benjamin has his hours cut a bit too much and is considering finding new employment in the field, but would be forced to move in order to do this. Furthermore he has developed a good relationship with the clients he regularly has and they in turn know and trust him, he worries about their future support. Ben decides to register his own business in the next town over and mentions his change of employment to his clients, many of whom choose to remain with him. Ben reasons that this is best for the clients and the proviso in his contract only served to benefit the business and was a stupid rule when the clients health and well being is meant to be top priority..

Question: Do you agree or disagree with Bens actions here? Why?

Dilemma 3: Cry Wolf

Rebecca and David have both been employed in a store for a while and have similar experience in their roles. Rebecca has noticed David has been rather negligent in his duties, intentionally ignoring troublesome customers, not opening on time, stocktake not being accurately done, among many other small mistakes and errors. Rebecca has been fixing up the issues for David to avoid any conflict at work and keep things running smoothly, so none of these issues have been reported. Rebecca has always considered the issues rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, just annoyances and inconveniences that result in a little extra (unpaid) work for her. Besides, David is a great salesman, he has confidence, he is charismatic and persuasive, but does tend to brag about how hard he works publicly which does annoy Rebecca.

The manager of the store is moving away and their position is advertised internally, David proudly remarks that he is applying and going to be Rebeccas boss soon with all the confidence and bravado he is known for. Rebecca is also applying for the position, and knowing of Davids laxity in his job, does not particularly want to work for him as it would not be good for her or the store, she knows she would end up doing the job anyway without the pay. However, reporting everything at once about David might hurt his general employment at the store regardless of if he gets the job or not.

Question: Should Rebecca raise her concerns about David in the interview? Why or why not?

Dilemma 4: On Blast

Gabriella is a voice actress (VA) for a popular video game (among other roles) and has been working with a company for years. She did work for a new franchise many years ago, which has since become very popular and ended up launching her career. She was offered $3000 for that job which was fairly standard for a new IP and a new VA trying to get into the industry, at the time, not to mention it is never more than a weeks worth of work. Now a decade later that game is a 500 million dollar franchise (thanks in no small part to the terrific performances given by the VA cast), they are planning on releasing the latest instalment. They contact Gabriella to reprise her role and offer her $4000 to do it. Since she is already intimately familiar with the character, it should take no longer than a day, two at most to complete this job.

Gabriella is insulted by this low offer, it may have been appropriate for a new person trying to break into the industry on an unknown project. But this was now a role that was extremely well known, she had been a big name in the industry for over 10 years now, her place in the game was critical and her contribution to its success undeniable.

She refuses to work for so little money expecting a counter offer but the company simply thanks her for her time and looks for someone else who can achieve a close proximity to her voice, or attempt to leverage the new AI voice simulation technology.

Outraged Gabriella takes to twitter to inform the fans of the terrible and exploitative pay at the game company, which now has 100 times the budget it had when it started, but employees are still being paid as little as possible, including key people vital to the games success. She asks fans to boycott the game to show the company how much her work is worth. She argues that the $4000 she was offered would be covered by the profit of 200 game sales, and the last game sold five million copies. She wants to demonstrate to the company that it was financially in their best interests to pay her (and by extension all VAs) more for her (and their) contributions.

She is met with many responses to her tweet, many sympathetically outraged and pointing to big name celebrities' pay increasing as they become more renowned, and others turning the discussion to VAs working situation in general. However, just as many point out that she is a contract worker regardless of the franchise's success, she should not be expecting to profit from the company's success any more than the programmers would, just be paid fairly for the work she does. Others point out that as a celebrity, she cannot demand to be employed, only reject an unfair offer as she has here. This tweet generated a lot of discussion around unions, the gig economy, what constitutes fair pay and many other surprising issues.

Question: How would you respond to Gabriellas tweet?