Ethical Reasoning I have been a waiter in a prestigious Main Line country club for about three years. Through my time there I have gained a lot of knowledge in the restaurant and hospitality industry. I have seen many mistakes during my time spent there. Many dinners have gone out wrong, drink orders confused, reservations recorded incorrectly, and most importantly checks either over or under charged. I have seen one to many checks issued wrong in a restaurant and have become overwhelmingly cautious when I go out to dinner to assure the accuracy of my dinner bill. I understand that it is human nature and that everyone makes mistakes. The servers are not over or under charging purposefully but just through an error of moving to fast or taking on to many tables that evening. In my experience I cannot recall more than one or two times where somebody had stopped me after I issued a check and said that I need to add more to their bill because I had forgotten to add a glass of wine or dessert. On the contrary, I have been pulled aside and scolded for accidently over charging someone several times in the past. Rarely do you find yourself stopping your server and asking them to charge your more for your meal. Recently I encountered a similar instance when I joined three friends for dinner and drinks last week. We all had a great meal with appetizers, drinks, entrées and desserts. It was my turn to pick up the bill for dinner and like I always do I made sure to read over the bill. Our server, who looked to be a new hire, forgot to charge us for a round of drinks and one of the appetizers we ordered. I calculated that the missing charges were approximately thirty dollars. I was torn, I know what it is like to be on the other side as server and to just make an honest mistake, but I was also a struggling college student who could really use that extra money. I was confronted into making a split second ethical decision and was honestly torn on how to confront the situation. There are several different ways to approach this ethical situation. There is no clear choice of what is right or wrong on any situation and no decision style or answer is automatically correct. The first decision style would be an experientialist view, someone who makes their decisions off of their first “gut” instinct. They would address the restaurant situation by automatically thinking that it was clearly an unethical issue to pay the incorrect amount. A systemicist, someone who is a Utilitarian and always looking for the greatest good for the most people, would without a doubt think it is unethical because it is taking revenue away from the restaurant that directly affects all of the employees and the prosperity of the restaurant. Another view would be from a transcendentalist, an individual who is very clear about right and wrong in their decision making process, who would believe that the situation described above would be wrong and unethical without any second guessing on paying the correct amount of the bill. A more means focused decision style, in contrast with the previous ends-focused decision style, would be the conventionalist. A conventionalist would always look at how others act, a conformist. They would approach the situation by not asking their server to add the missing charges because the majority of the people would just be happy that they saved some money on their evening out. An individualist, someone who makes their decisions on the theory of whatever benefits “me” the most is the best decision, would not try to right the fact with their server, but just consider it their lucky day. The final ethical viewpoint would be a legitimist, someone who considers the law and rules to be considered ethical. They would ask their server to add the missing charges because they would not