1. When asked the vast majority of people will agree with the following two statements. Would you agree with them also?
a. I have solid, well-considered ethical beliefs that can be altered only by reasoned arguments or new evidence.
b. I have character and integrity that will carry me though when I face difficult moral choices.
I believe that I do have solid and well considered ethical beliefs that can be altered only by reasoned arguments and the emergence of new evidence. I also believe that I have the character and integrity necessary to carry me through difficult moral choices.
I believe that having this self-confidence is necessary in our time and age where the social forces at large always try to push us into different
If the last fifty years of psychological research has proven anything, it’s that the situational often dominates the dispositional. That is to say, our disposition or desire to be good people can be overwhelmed by psychological or organizational factors that we may not even be aware of. These factors adversely affect ethical decision making as well as economic decision making, meaning that people are boundedly ethical as well as boundedly rational.
The basic notion, as spelled out by Professor Ann Tenbrunsel and her colleagues, is that systematic and predictable organizational pressures and psychological processes cause people to engage in ethically questionable behaviors that are inconsistent with their own preferences. Various factors cause us to make unethical decisions that we later regret.
For example, although most of us want to act ethically, we also wish to please authority figures. Therefore, if our boss asks us to do something unethical, we may do it without even realizing our mistake because we are focusing on pleasing the boss rather than on the ethical dimensions of the issue facing us.
To take another example we also have a natural desire to be "part of the team" at work. Therefore, if a questionable action advances the team’s interests, as we perceive them, we may act unethically because, again, we are focusing upon achieving the team’s goals rather than adhering to our own ethical standards.
Most of us want to act ethically,