please review the eight ethical principles provided to you.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Although you are the only one who can decide which ethical principles you will follow and how you will prioritize them, it is helpful to consider some ethical principles with deep roots in many cultures that have survived throughout recorded history:

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Putting yourself into the place of others and thinking of yourself as the object of the decision can help you think about fairness in decision making.

Universalism: If an action is not right for all situations, then it is not right for any specific situation (Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative). Ask yourself, "If we adopted this rule in every case, could the organization, or society, survive?"

Slippery Slope: If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to take at An action may appear to work in one instance to solve a problem, but if repeated, would result in a negative outcome. In plain English, this rule might be stated as "once started down a slippery path, you may not be able to stop."

Collective Utilitarian Principle: Toke the action that achieves the greater value for all of society. This rule assumes you can prioritize values in a rank order and understand the consequences of various courses of action.

Risk Aversion: Toke the action that produces the least harm, or the least potential cost. some actions have extremely high failure costs of very low probability (e.g., building a nuclear generating facility in an urban area) or extremely high failure costs of moderate probability (speeding and automobile accidents). Avoid the high failure cost actions and choose those actions whose consequences would not be catastrophic, even if there were a failure.

No Free Lunch: Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration (This is the ethical "no free lunch" rule.) If something someone else has created is useful to you, it has value and you should assume the creator wants compensation for this work.

The New York Times Test (Perfect Information Rule): Assume that the results of your decision on a matter will be the subject of the lead article in the New York Times the next day. Will the reaction of readers be positive or negative? Would your parents, friends, and children be l of your decision? Most criminals and unethical actors assume imperfect information, and therefore they assume their decisions and actions will never be revealed. When making decisions involving ethical dilemmas, it is wise to assume perfect information markets.

The Social Contract Rule: Would you like to live in a society where the principle you are supporting would become an organizing principle of the entire society? For instance, you might think it is wonderful to download illegal copies of music tracks, but you might not want to live in a society that does not respect property rights, such as your property rights to the car in your driveway, or your rights to a term paper or original art.

None of these rules is an absolute guide, and there are exceptions and logical difficulties with all of them. Nevertheless, actions that do not easily pass these guidelines deserve some very close attention and a great deal of caution because the appearance of unethical behavior may do  much harm to you and your company as the actual behavior.

 

Think about the issue of illegal music downloading on the Internet, and apply these eight principles to it. Note the results of this analysis in your reflection post.

As an employer, would you hire someone who admits illegal downloading from the Web? Does it matter how much or little?

 

 

As an extension to what you have shared in your reflection post, please end the post with a question or discussion topic that could further any dialogue on this topic and/or is something you would be curious about with regards to the topic you discussed. Provide a suitable answer to the question(s) you've posed to reveal your understanding of the issue(s) arising from the topic.

 

Post your reflection.

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When analyzing the issue of illegal music downloading on the Internet using the eight ethical principles provided here is how each principle can be ap... View the full answer