Utilitarianism And Kant's Ethical Dilemma

IT manager of a credit card company is being involved into ethical dilemma. The ethical dilemmas which are raised by Paul who break the prohibition of company policy on using company resources for personal purpose.

A proper discussion on two fundamental ethical theory – Utilitarianism and Kant deontology – is believed to provide a practical, systematic and structured assessment of the ethical judgements in this case (Barnett, et al., 1998). It is arguably that two different perspectives approach could offer a better insight towards ethical case in business context compared to single universal theory. Both utilitarianism and Kant framework will be presented in pleasure and pain table and Kant’s moral test respectively.

Ethical dilemmas

Two ethical

It implies that the theory judge behavior to be ethical in terms of the benefits by behavior itself (Mill, 2006).

If the manager terminate Paul, it is almost impossible for manager to receive personal bonus on the upcoming launch. Furthermore, Paul may lose of economic support and force to search for a new company. The action does affect Paul’s team and company indirectly even though there will be no effect to Fred. Paul’s team have to adapt to new colleague who replaces Paul’s position. It means it requires time in order to build teamwork chemistry for the few days off launch. Therefore, it causes company to lose an expertise and costs of possible risks to unsuccessful launch (Mill, 2006).

If the manager not to dismiss Paul, he has the potential for personal bonus and achieve launch objectives even though it is a bad conscience (Shaw, 2010). Paul could be able to secure the job as a market analysts. At the same time, Fred – the market analysts - could have misunderstand the action but there is no significant impact to Fred. Paul’s team may lead to higher productivity since the team can continue to work with Paul on the upcoming launch. In fact, the higher the team productivity, the higher possibility for the company to maximize profit (Makkreel & Luft,

The decision to terminate Paul is broadly accepted by party being involved because it is clear that any employees who break the codes of conduct have to be terminated. In contrast, there will be an internal dispute and subjected to greater misunderstanding if IT manager choose to against the policy. Therefore, terminating Paul passes the third maxim. Thus, based on the Kant’s moral test, decision to dismiss Paul from the company is considered ethical because it passes the three maxims principle. It is because terminate Paul is a universally accepted decision by every personal. However, it may cause company to lose valuable resources on the upcoming launch.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both school of ethics have noble moral ideas which is totally contradicted. Consequentialists view that not terminating Paul with a warning letter is ethical. In contrast, deontologists believe that terminate Paul is considered ethical because it commits strictly to ethical principles and passes all the three maxim principles.

Practically, limitation of these school of thoughts may limit the effectiveness of decision making when it comes to practicing business ethics. From the contradicted version, utilitarianism may reflect to actual reasoning because it contributes to a better outcome in handling the issues of clear codes for grey