1) If ethics as a subject predates the arrival of formal business education in early 1990s, why

in your view is the trust in business at a new low today?

After the financial crisis there has been rebound of trust but the indexes have shown trend
of deterioration in 2017 as compared to 2016 as per Edleman’s Barometer. With changing
time and rapid growth in technology the expectations from the business and the customer
perception are also changing. Economic, social, environment and privacy conditions have
become important consideration along with creating values. To bring out these changes,
commitment and adaptability to future expectations are required at the leadership level.

Some of the examples in which the corporates have struggled are data privacy concern of
Facebook users (2018), Volkswagen issue over emission norms violations (2015), banking
industry frauds.

The reason why the management ends up doing such practices may be due to hunger for
profit maximisation at cost of other factors. Ethics as subject gives us the exposure to such
ethical dilemmas that comes before such decision making but may be more enforcement on
these topics and increasing awareness of the changing expectations may lead to decline in
such unfair practices.

2) If teaching ethics has not worked, should we teach the subject at all?

Teaching ethics before entering into corporate world provides the experiential learning. We
can see some cases of unethical practices by corporates today but it is essential to continue
the teaching else the cases will rise exponentially. It is important to understand how moral
principles are applied to various business scenarios. There are multiple reasons why it is
important to continue teaching the subject. Some of the reasons are as follows: -

 Handling ethical dilemma

The values of an individual are developed and influenced by upbringing and the
environment he has lived in. The discussion of cases puts the individual into
situation where he or she gets the exposure to different opposing point of views for
the same case and also give an understanding of reason of difference in the
opinions. Sometimes there is no correct answer for some situations but it is
important to understand different opinions.

 Critical thinking

Various moral and ethical dilemma develops the critical thinking which makes the
individual to think from different point of view. It is very important to have sound
critical thinking skills to make appropriate decision

 Exposure to Trade-offs

Productivity vs occupational health of works, profit maximisation vs unfair practices,

profit maximisation vs cost to environment, profit vs social factor consideration are
 some managerial dilemmas that comes while decision making. Teaching at early
stage

3) How do you view the trolley problem?

The trolley problem poses an ethical and moral dilemma on how we respond to the situation and
how our response change as the context of the situation changes. There can be different line of
moral thought for the problem. It highlights the fact that everyone may want to do the correct thing
but ends of doing thing differently based on the situation.

According to me based on the given information for the situation the better decision would be to
pull the lever and to save life of 5 people instead of letting them die given I had the option to save
them. As per me it is better to go with the decision which is will benefit the most. Similar is the
response for the 2nd situation also.

Research on this kind of situation will help to understand various school of thoughts. Similar kind of
dilemma in decision making can be seen in some real-life situations like response to COVID drug
trails, programming of the autonomous/driver less vehicle.