Ethical Dilemma

Analytical Model For Ethical Decisions. Ethical codes are informative and helpful, but motivation to behave ethically must come from within oneself and not just from the fear of penalties for violating professional codes. Presented below is a sequence of steps that provide a framework for analyzing ethical issues. These steps can help youapply your own sense of right and wrong to ethical dilemmas.

Step 1. Determine the facts of the situation. This involves determining the who, what, where, when and how.

Step 2. Identify the ethical issue and the stakeholders. Stakeholders may include shareholders, creditors, management, employees, and the community.

Step 3. Identify the values related to the situation. For example, in some situations confidentiality may be an important value that might conflict with the right to know.

Step 4. Specify the alternative courses of action.

Step 5. Evaluate the courses of action specified in step 4 in terms of their consistency with the values identified in step 3. This step may or may not lead to a suggested course of action.

Step 6. Identify the consequences of each possible course of action. If step 5 does not provide a course of action, assess the consequences of each of possible course of action for all of the stakeholders involved.

Step 7. Make your own decision and take any indicated action.

The analytical steps outlined above provide a framework you can use to evaluate ethical situations like this.