Question

Discuss five ethical principles, which are applicable in various circumstances. We need to resist the urge to commit to one only because many of the principles are applied in the same situations. Describe an event or circumstance when you employed one or more of the ethical perspectives. This can be a personal or professional experience, one in which you can apply the specifics of the ethical perspective. In hindsight, could you have handled the situation differently and/or could you have employed a different perspective that would have effected the outcome? Apply at least one other source to your specific example/discussion.

Please help.

Answer 1

The five ethical principles are as given below.

(a) Respect for autonomy - An individual must be free to exercise automony and make his / her own choices in life. His independence must be respected, facilitated and promoted.

(b) Nonmaleficence- This is a concept of not causing harm to others by our actions. This is the prime principle of ethical practice which advocates not to cause harm to the others intentionally and to refrain from actions which put someone at risk of being harmed.

(c) Beneficence - It means engaging in the activities that benefit all without expecting something in return.

(d) Justice - To work in line with the principles of natural justice and ensure that no one is subject to biases and prejudices.

(e) Fidelity - To be loyal to the all stakeholders, be faithful an honor commitments towards them.

An example from the life where I followed the ethical principle of justice to eliminate bias at the workplace against a temporary employee who was partially hearnig impaired. He used to handle the kitchen so his impair did not affect his perfromance at work. He was immaculate with his work, but being differently abled and having only basic education, he was subject to intimidation and bullying by few colleagues who demanded favours from him in form of free lunches, share of cookies and other goodies to take home and expected him to work at their homes in the evening as help whenever there was a party. Though he was in a compromised conditions of health and education, he never compromised with his integrity and politely refused when asked for favor. Willey, one of the bad boys of the company, decided to teach him lesson. He stole an kitchen appliance costing $1500 and blamed it on the poor creature. He produced fake evidences to prove the case and got him dismissed. Being head of the distribution unit, I decided to speak to the head of utilities who was in charge of the kitchen, who agreed to initiate a probe into the matter. On close scrutiny of the CCTV footage and other events at the time of incident, Willey was found to be the real culprit. He was taken to task and dismissed. The poor man was reinstated, but he refused to join as he had found another good job by that time.

I could have let it go as any other incident, because I had no concerns with the matter, nor it affected me or my work in any way or the other, but knowing this person, his integrity, dedication and his disability very closely, I could not stop myself from standing up to this cause where an innocent was subject to injustice.