An Alternative Instructional Method For Business Ethics: Examining The Role and Rationalization of What Is "Right"

Abstract

This paper introduces a teaching methodology for business ethics based, in part on the institute for Global Ethics’ Ethical Fitness model which utilizes “right versus right” paradigms to identify and analyze ethical dilemmas. Whereas the Ethical Fitness model finds clarity in the identification of what is “right”, this paper suggests that students will encounter and observe numerous situations in business where there is little clarity available for such a determination. Therefore, this discussion suggests that students probe cognitive dissonance: the tension between two ideas or beliefs that creates the tendency human beings have to justify their actions and decisions, and develop self-serving values definitions. To better appreciate the root of an individual’s self justification, this discussion proposes that students utilize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a context for determining , or at least understanding, why actors who make unethical decisions see those decisions, at one point in the decision-making process, as “right”.