Susan had been working for a financial services company for a little more than year. She loved her job and was good at it—she tried to learn as much about her company’s products and services as possible so she could advance. The financial services industry is very competitive and the company believed the best way to stand out was to offer excellent customer service. Memos and emails on the subject were sent out to employees often and management constantly stressed that satisfying the customer should be the first priority of every employee. One day Susan had an important customer on the phone who was requesting information on her account. Mrs. Adams was very upset because she needed the information right away and Susan couldn’t give it to her. The information was in the computer files of the department manager, John, who was not in his office. Susan didn’t know where he was. She doesn’t yet have authority to access accounts like Mrs. Adams, and she didn’t want to risk doing the wrong thing by overstepping bounds. She carefully explained this to the customer, yet Mrs. Adams still insisted that she needed the information immediately and if she didn’t get it she would close all of her accounts (with assets totaling in the millions of dollars) and take her business elsewhere. Susan knows Mrs. Adams is a prominent member of the community and is friends with many other wealthy customers of the company.
Susan puts Mrs. Adams on hold and calls one of the accounting clerks, Jan, and quickly explains the situation to her. Jan has worked for the company a long time and knows a lot. She tells Susan she has to decide for herself what to do.
John’s computer is password-protected, but Susan can tell by looking that the computer file is open and she knows how to look up Mrs. Adam’s account. She decides that the best thing to do is satisfy an important customer and, believing she has Mrs. Adams’ permission, Susan looks up the information and tells her what she wants to know. She thanks Susan and hangs up.
John returns shortly and when he finds out that Susan has accessed the files he is upset, even though she explains that Mrs. Adams practically ordered her to do it. Susan said she was thinking about what was best for the company and because John wasn’t there she had to do something. He reiterates the company rules to Susan and reminds her she shouldn’t have accessed the files. Because this is a violation of the rules, John says he’ll have to write up a disciplinary action on her.
Later that day, Susan was in the break room and told her friend Karen what happened that morning. Susan explained that she weighed her options and decided that satisfying an important customer was the greater good, given that the company emphasized customer service. Karen agreed with Susan and thought John was wrong for punishing an employee who was only trying to do the right thing. In fact, she thought John was so out of line that she told Susan she’d let her use her password if something like that happened again.
At 6:30, everyone has gone home but Nick, who has an office across the hall from John. He works in a different department, but he knows the rules about who has authority to access certain files. Nick is bothered by the fact that he saw Susan in John’s office for a long time, a very long time, earlier in the day. At first he didn’t want to say anything, but after thinking about it (he considers the net harm to Susan if he speaks up—he knows she needs this job to get health insurance for her chronically ill child) and weighing his options, he decides he must tell someone what he saw. When he sees that the Vice President is still in her office, he heads down the hallway to share his concerns.

DIRECTIONS:
Rank the employees in the story—Susan, John, Jan, Karen and Nick—from first place to fifth place. Assign the first place to the person you think behaved the most ethically. Assign fifth place to the one who behaved the least ethically.

________________ for first place.

________________ for second place.

________________ for third place.

________________ for fourth place.

________________ for fifth place.

Determine the stakeholders.
Evaluate the characters’ actions using these five ethical principles: Egoism, Utilitarianism, Duty, Ethic of Care, and Virtue Ethics. The questions below will help you evaluate and understand the differences between the theories. Don’t answer these questions in your paper, but use them to decide which principle was most important to each person.

What would an Egoism Position be?
What is in the person’s immediate self-interest?
What consequences would best match up with his/her interests?
What would contravene his/her interests?
What act would best realize his/her self-interest?
Rational Self-Interest?
What is in the person’s longer-term self-interest?
Are there longer-term good or bad consequences (coming from short-term bad or good consequences) more important to his/her self-interest?
What would a Utilitarian Position be?
Who are all the people (stakeholders) possibly affected by the person’s decisions?
What sort of consequences result to them?
Positive consequences?
Negative consequences?
How many people are affected positively or negatively, and how much by each possible choice?
Rank-order the possible choices his/her has, perhaps doing a cost-benefit analysis.
What would a Duty Position be?
What duties does the person have?
Duties towards other people?
Duties towards herself?
Which actions or choices will fulfill those duties, and which will go against them?
Kantian perspective
Can the person’s possible choices be universalized?
Will the person be treating other people as mere means to ends, or treating them as ends?
Is there any conflict of duties in this situation?

What would an Ethic of Care Position be?
What relationships (if any) are at stake in this scenario?
Relationships the person has with others?
Relationships of other people?
Are there any people who he/she can or should care for?
Are there any people who are particularly vulnerable to his/her actions?
Does a care perspective actually contribute to ethical evaluation of this situation? If not, why not?

What would a Virtue Ethics Position be?
What sort of character should the person have or display in his/her actions?
What sort of character should he/she not have or display in his/her actions?
What good or bad character traits in particular are relevant?
What actions or choices will reflect or produce good or bad character traits?
Will the person’s actions model good or bad character traits for other people?