ETHICS LAW AND JUDICIARY SYSTEM ANSWER KEY COMPLETE MODULES STUDY GUIDE
CHAPTER 1 ETHICS
Opening Case Questions
1. The Department of Justice was not
... [Show More] justified in placing this warning in the McNulty Memo
because it implied that the targeted employees were guilty although they had simply been labeled
“culpable” by Justice Department prosecutors and nothing more. This violates a basic American
legal principle that says that a party is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
2. It would not be illegal for a business manager to disobey the McNulty Memo. It is
unreasonable to expect a business managers to obey the dictates of a memo rather than a basic
precept of the law. In this case, the memo asks the manager to forget or ignore the basic legal
principle that says that any criminal defendant is innocent until proven guilty.
3. It be not be unethical for a busines manager to disobey the McNulty Memo. In fact, it would
actually be unethical for a busines manager to obey the McNulty Memo. Once again, it is
unreasonable to demand that a business manager follow a directive that violates a basic principle
of law, that is, the principle that says that any criminal defendant is innocent until proven guilty.
4. It would be unethical for a business manager to fire a “culpable” employee. The Department
of Justice has done nothing other than label the employee as “culpable” at this point. This would
not be sufficient grounds for the firing of such an employee from any ethical perspective, except,
perhaps, for ethical relativism which can be used to justify just about any bad behavior.
5. A business manager should probaby simply carry on business as usual. In fact, there would be
nothing wrong should the mmanger decide to offer legal assistance to the employee, despite the
warning in the memo.
BUSINESS LAW IN THE NEWS
Questions for Analysis
1. Psychological profiling can be defended from the perspective of utility thinking because the
profiler’s activities will benefit the person who requests the profile and his or her business
associates. On the othe hand, from a utilitarian point of view, this type of business-motivated
psychological profiling is not ethically acceptable. While there is no way to guage whether the
greatest good has been produced for the greatest number of people, there is also no reason to
believe that anyone, other than the person who requested the profile and his or her business
associates, will benefit.
2. A rational ethicist would not approve of the plan to produce a “diagnosis from afar.” Using the
principles of rational ethics, he or she would outlaw psychological profiling, arguing that, since
he or she would not want to be psychologically profiled, or “diagnosed from afar,” no one else
would want to be profiled either. Such an action (psychological profiling) would violate the other
person’s autonomy and self respect, something that rational ethics strictly forbids. Psychological
profiling uses the other negotiators as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves.
3. When CEO A hired a psychoanalyst to produce a long-distance diagnosis of CEO B, CEO A
violated the character traits of fairness, compassion, and honesty. First, for a negotiation session
to be fair, both parties should have access to the same or similar information about the other party.
This does not happen when one party profiles the other. Second, negotiators who use
psychological profiling do not appear, on the surface at least, to have compassion for the
“profilee” who is clearly being used like some sort of plaything. Finally, unless the profiler
informs the “profilee” of the profiling process, the profiler is being dishonest about the way that
the transaction is being carried out.
4. CEO A has broken the social contract by commissioning a remote diagnosis of CEO B. The
breach has occurred because CEO A has made a long distance prejudgment of CEO B without
actually interacting with him or her. Moreover, even if CEO A has interacted with CEO B, since
the psychologist has not, the net effet is the same, that is, a prejudgment without personal
interaction.
5. If CEO A were actually an agent of the Department of Justice, it would not be ethical under
any theory other than ethical relativism (which can excuse any bad behavior) for a government
agent to commission a psychological profile of a business person. Such a psychological profile
would be an invasion of privacy engineered by the government.
Questions for Review and Discussion
1. The law consists of rules of conduct established by the government of a society to maintain
harmony, stability, and justice. Morality involves the values that govern a society’s attitude
toward right and wrong.
2. Both theories depend upon an outside force for their understanding of law, morality, and
human rights. The difference is that the positivists see law as coming from social isntitutions
rather than from God, human nature, or human rationality. Ethical relativism holds that there
are no fixed or stable standards of right and wrong.
3. Ethical relativism is an ethical theory that claims there is no objective standard for
determining right from wrong.
4. Social contract theory holds that right and wrong are measured by the obligations imposed on
each individual by an implied social agreement.
5. The steps in applying utilitarianism follow: (1) The action to be evaluated should be stated in
nonemotional, general terms; (2) every person or class of people who will be affected by the
action must be identified; (3) good and bad consequences in the relation to those people [Show Less]