ETHICS NOTES 2

COGNITIVE ERRORS
 There is no strong correlation
between traditional measures of
character and ethical actions.
Behavioral Ethics
- focused in large part upon why
well-intentioned people
sometimes make bad decisions
and do not live up to their own
ethical standards.
- It investigates why people make
the ethical (and unethical)
decisions that they do in order to
gain insights into how people can
improve their ethical decision-
making and behavior.
Conformity Bias – tendency people
have to take their cues for proper
behavior, including ethical behavior,
from their peers rather than exercising
their own independent ethical judgment.
Role Morality – tendency people have
to use different moral standards as they
play different roles in society.
Overconfidence Bias – the tendency of
people to be more confident that is
objectively justified regarding their moral
character and their ability to act ethical.
1. Incrementalism
o It is referred to as the
slippery slope, we lose our
ethical footing one step at
a time.
o It describes how we
unconsciously lower our
ethical standards over time
through small changes in
behavior.
o Francesca Gino and Max
Bazerman referred to it as
the “boiling frog
syndrome”. We
unconsciously lower the
bar over time through
small changes in ethicality.
o Moral agent involved must
be at the higher ground
and preserve your ethical
belief. For example, you
have a principle of not
telling lies, but there’s an
instance that you lied and
cause a positive impact, so
eventually you continue to
lie.
2. Self-serving Bias
o It causes us to see things
in ways that support our
best interests and our pre-
existing POV.
o Our self-interest clouds our
ethical judgment, even in
the most well-intentioned
people.
 o It affects how we
remember information. It
shows that we more likely
recall evidence that
supports our point of view
than evidence that
opposes it.
3. Tangible and Abstract
o It describes how we react
more to vivid, immediate
inputs than to ones
removed in time and
space, meaning we can
pay insufficient attention to
the adverse consequences
our actions have on
others.
o Having empathy
4. Loss Aversion
o We hate losses about
SOCIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL
twice as much as we enjoy
PRESSURES
gains, meaning we are
more likely to act
unethically to avoid a loss
than to secure a gain. This
phenomenon is known as
loss aversion.
o Related to prospect theory
which includes the notion
that people will tend to
take much greater risks to
avoid losing the things that
they have than they would
have taken to gain them in
the first place.
5. Framing
o describes how our
responses to situations,
including our ethical
judgments, are impacted
just by how those
situations are posed or
viewed.
o If there is manipulation
happening.
6. Overconfidence
o our tendency to be more
confident in our ability to
act ethically than is
objectively justified by our
abilities and moral
character.
o With extraordinary skills or
with a high title.
1. Obedience to Authority
o Obedience to authority
describes our tendency to
please authority figures.
We may place too much
emphasis on that goal and,
consciously or
subconsciously,
subordinate the goal of
acting ethically.
2. Conformity Bias
o Conformity bias refers to
our tendency to take cues
 for proper behavior in most
contexts from the actions
of others rather than
exercise our own
independent judgment.
SITUATIONAL FACTORS
1. Time Pressure
o when people are under
time pressure, they will
often act less ethically than
in situations when they are
not. They will not realize
the impact that time
pressure has on their
decision making and
actions, but the impact is
often there nonetheless
2. Transparency
o It is often said that
“integrity is doing the right
thing, even when no one is
watching.” Unfortunately,
the evidence is shockingly
clear that if people feel that
they are not being
watched, they will tend to
act less ethically
3. Cleanliness and Fatigue
o People also tend to act
more ethically in a clean
room, and less ethically in
a dirty, ill-kept room. They
are also more vulnerable
to ethical missteps if they
are tired or if their self-
control is depleted.
ETHICS NOTES 3
THE SIX ETHICAL LENSES
1. The Rights Lens
o Protects and respects the
moral rights of those
affected.
o humans have a dignity
based on their human
nature per se or on their
ability to choose freely
what they do with their
lives.
o Rights are also often
understood as implying
duties—in particular, the
duty to respect others'
rights and dignity. It is a
justified claim on others.
o They have a right to be
treated as ends in
themselves and not merely
as means to other ends.
o Moral rights are justified by
moral standards that most
people acknowledge, but
which are not necessarily
codified in law; these
standards have also,
however, been interpreted
differently by different
people.
o Negative Rights claim by
one person that imposes a
"negative" duty on all
others—the duty not to
interfere with a person's
activities in a certain
 area. They claim for each
person a zone of non-
interference from others. It
is rights that protect some
form of human freedom or
liberty.
o Positive Rights claim for
each person the positive
assistance of others in
fulfilling basic constituents
like health and education
(welfare needs). It
provides something that
people need to secure
their well-being. Positive
rights impose a positive
duty on us—the duty
actively to help a person to
have or to do something
and help sustain the
welfare of those who need
help.
2. The Justice Lens
o Justice is the idea that
each person should be
given their due, and what
people are due is often
3. The Utilitarian Lens
interpreted as fair or equal
treatment.
o Justice means giving each
person what he or she
deserves.
o Fairness has also been
used to refer to the ability
to make judgments that
are not overly general but
that are concrete and
specific to a particular
case.
o The most fundamental
principle of justice "equals
should be treated equally
and unequals unequally."
o Different types of justice
are social justice
(structuring the basic
institutions of society; will
ensure basic welfare),
distributive justice
(distributing benefits and
burdens), corrective
justice (repairing past
injustices), retributive
justice (determining how
to appropriately punish
wrongdoers),
compensatory justice
(people are fairly
compensated for their
injuries by those who have
injured them), and
restorative or
transformational justice
(restoring relationships or
transforming social
structures as an alternative
to criminal punishment).
o Utilitarianism, a results-
based approach, says that
the ethical action is the
one that produces the
greatest balance of good
over harm for as many
stakeholders as possible.
It requires an accurate
determination of the
likelihood of a particular
result and its impact.
 o utilitarianism is a moral
principle that holds that the
morally right course of action
in any situation is the one
that produces the greatest
balance of benefits over
harms for everyone affected.
o utilitarianism does not care
whether the benefits are
produced by lies,
manipulation, or coercion.
4. The Common Good Lens
o the interlocking relationships of
society are the basis of ethical
reasoning and that respect and
compassion for all others—
especially the vulnerable—are
requirements of such reasoning.
o Unlike the utilitarian lens,
which sums up and aggregates
goods for every individual, the
common good lens highlights
mutual concern for the shared
interests of all members of a
community.
o Common good is "certain
general conditions that
are...equally to everyone's
advantage" and "the sum of
those conditions of social life
which allow social groups
and their individual members
relatively thorough and ready
access to their own
fulfillment."
o The common good, then,
consists primarily of having
the social systems,
institutions, and
environments on which we all
depend work in a manner
that benefits all people.
o Problems encountered:
Individualism, free riders,
unequal sharing of burdens,
and pluralism.
5. The Virtue Lens
o Virtues are dispositions and
habits that enable us to act
according to the highest
potential of our character and on
behalf of values like truth and
beauty.
o Virtue ethics asks of any action,
“What kind of person will I
become if I do this?” or “Is this
action consistent with my acting
at my best?”
o "Virtues" are attitudes,
dispositions, or character
traits that enable us to be
and to act in ways that
develop this potential. They
enable us to pursue the
ideals we have adopted.
Honesty, courage,
compassion, generosity,
fidelity, integrity, fairness,
self-control, and prudence
are all examples of virtues.
o Virtues are developed
through learning and
through practice.
6. The Care Ethics Lens
o Care ethics is rooted in
relationships and in the need to
listen and respond to individuals
in their specific circumstances,
 rather than merely following
rules or calculating utility.
o Care ethics emphasizes the
value of people’s
relationships, the universality
of human dependence on
others, the significance of
emotions and the body, and
the context-sensitive nature
of ethical deliberation that
does not merely follow
abstract moral rules.
o Furthermore, care ethics is
not limited just to
considering personal
relationships that are
especially intimate or close,
but can also extend to
professional relationships,
political relationships with
fellow citizens, and even
global relationships with
distant others across the
world.