What's ethics got to do with it?

I'm currently enrolled in a class that uses the text Business Essentials, 5th edition by Ronald J. Ebbert & Ricky W. Griffin (Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005). Chapter Two of that text is called "Conducting Business Ethically and Responsibly". Let me try to summarize some of that material here, and see if any of it applies to the business of delivering mail, or campaignming for office, or running a Union. Ethics, the authors say, are "beleifs about what's right and wrong or good and bad" (p.37). They are based on an individual's values & morals, and on the social context in which the behavior occurs. Individual ethics will always differ, then, according to the individual, the situation, and the culture.

Later on (p.40), in a section about "Assessing Ethical Behavior", they offer a three-step Model for Applying Ethical Judgments (capitalizations added by me), that consists of:

1. Gather the relevant factual information.
2. Analyze the facts to determine the most appropriate moral values.
3. Make an ethical judgment based on the rightness or wrongness of the proposed activity or policy.

The crux of the matter, they claim, in any question of applying an ethical analysis to one's behavior (what we do or say or how we interact), is to start with an evaluation of the following 4 ethical norms:

1. Utility. Does a particular act optimize the benefits to those who are affected by it?
2. Rights: Does it respect the rights of the individuals involved?
3. Justice: Is it consistent with what's fair?
4. Caring: Is it consistent with people's responsibilities to each other?

The rule of thumb they offer, then, goes like this:

• If the particular act or policy violates all 4 norms, it's unethical.
• It the particular act violates none, it's ethical.
• And if the act violates one or two of the norms, we should ask ourselves the following:
  
• Is there any reason for overriding one or two of the ethical norms?
• Is one ethical norm more important than the other?
• Is there any reason why a person may have been forced into committing an act or following a policy?

So - I repeat: What's ethics got to do with it? I'm going to just leave the question up in the air for now - I don't want to get too "heavy" too soon (even though by nature I appear to be)! However, I will assert that we need to at least TALK about these things. To one another. With open ears, and inner sight. Responsibly.

Yoo-hoo! Is anyone out there?

Last night launched the beginning of the local NALC election campaign for Officers. Individuals were nominated, and information about the process was publicly shared. As we begin this roughly 2-month process, I think some of our attention should be on our ethics. The reason it's on my mind this morning, probably, is because of some of the questions raised last night at that meeting, in response to my announcement of the inauguration of a membership blog for Branch 214, and of the possibility of having a Branch member's web page with information for, by, and about the candidates for Election 2005. I promise to consider my actions in the light of this idea of ethics, and hope you do too.