Freud Vs Beam

Garibaldi Soedarjo
MGMT 6
Essay 1 According to psychologist James Rest, four steps precede an action that is ethical. The first step for a person to act ethically is that the person has to recognize that the situation is an ethical situation. Psychologist, Albert Bandura states that there are impediments that people use to dismiss framing a situation as an ethical one. Beam had shown these impediments prior to his retirement. When Beam began understating the company’s expenses, he argues that the investors will only be misled by a “little.” Based on this statement, Beam is distorting the harm that he is inflicting. He felt that investors are smart enough to understand this and would not be harmed by it. He was convinced that his dishonesty

This is when people justify inflicting harm by convincing themselves that what they are doing is a worthy and moral action. Beam felt that his decision to create fake sales entries was for a good cause. He was able to convince himself that what he is doing is preventing people in his company from getting harmed. He saw himself as a savior. When told to cook the books, Beam had a choice of whether to proceed or not. He could have declined Scrushy’s instruction and done the fourth step in James Rest’s process: carrying out the morally right decision. Beam has stated again and again that Scrushy was intimidating and had a dictatorial leadership style, which made him fearful of objecting Scrushy. This is yet another impediment to moral behavior. It can be inferred that this is because of Beam’s inability to follow through with one’s judgment of what is right (weakness of will) and his predisposition to obey authority

There are three factors that can reduce a person’s level of moral responsibility. The first factor relates to the level of involvement. If the person’s level of involvement is low, then the person’s degree of moral responsibility is mitigated. Beam was very much involved in orchestrating this scheme alongside Scrushy. Beam planned and initiated the schemes. Secondly, moral responsibility can be mitigated if the person only has partial knowledge. Beam had all the knowledge of what he was doing. He knew that what he was doing is wrong but continued with it. The third factor relates to the difficulty of avoiding it. If he wanted to, Beam could have resigned when Scrushy first told him to make up the numbers. Beam had always had the option of declining Scrushy’s orders, but he went along with