Similar to other employees, Moira is faced with moral and ethical dilemma. The best solution for Moira is to report the problem to the supervisor over the manager’s head. This behavior will not be considered as unethical because Moira had already reported the problem to her direct manager but received no reply. In case, Moira will keep silence, she could be fired because of poor performance and low productivity showed by her department. In organizations, any trusting relationship entails the keeping of secrets. The best solution is to avoid publicity and have an informal talk with the supervisor. This would help to avoid publicity and solve the problem peacefully (Darwall, 2002). The duty of confidentiality requires that information and Moira’s provided to the supervisor will not be disclosed without the specific consent. In this case, Moira should follow utilitarian ethics. The approach considers an action s being morally right or wrong based solely on the consequences that result from performing it. The consequences of the Moira’s actions are improved productivity and netter performance of her department. The right action is the one that brings the best consequences, or the greatest amount of utility. The weaknesses correspond to the strengths of utilitarianism (Donaldson and et al 2002).
If Moira wants to stay with this company, she should improve the situation and behave ethically. In any other case, she will be fired together with low skilled and lazy workers. The unspoken assumption of the case is that the costs and benefits of ethical behavior are measurable on a common moral scale. The interests to consider when choosing ethical behavior are the altruistic thoughts that consider the most usefulness for all the persons affected by the action and decision of Moira (Goodin, 1995). I would suggest Moira to report the case to the supervisor because this decision will help to improve productivity and discipline employees. There is no violation of privacy or personal matters because employees are not allowed to solve personal problems and use their office computers for personal matters during business hours. Conflicts of moral duty come in various types, sizes, and intensities. The employees cannot anticipate all such problems. But what such conflicts have in common is both situational and philosophical nature (Donaldson et al 2002).
For employees like Moira, a personal moral dilemma is experienced by the professional code of ethics. She is faced with a concern and, often, hard-choice circumstances. By philosophical we mean that thinking about essentials–goals, purposes, reasons–is ignited by the moral conflict. For Moira, confronting ethical dilemmas in professional field is a real task. The scenario clearly depicts a conflict between professional responsibilities (auditing activities for the real estate firm) and personal morality (a desire to see that the homelessness problem is solved or, at the very least, does not increase) (Smart and Williams 1990). Principles and duties are at stake and seem irreconcilable. But there are strategies that, if not providing a convenient “way out” of the ethical dilemma of internal relations, do clarify (and sometimes make public) the conflict at hand. The resulting distribution from all employees will have a wider distribution than in the original distribution. Ethics is the core of the profession helping employees to determine the right and wrong actions and behave ethically in difficult situations. Moira should behave ethically and support the main principles and values of the company and its codes of ethics, even if other employees violate these established behavior patterns.
References
Darwall, S. (2002). Deontology (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy). Wiley-Blackwell.
Donaldson, T., et al. (2002). Ethical Issues in Business, 7th edn, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Goodin, R. E. (1995). Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy). Cambridge University Press.
Smart, J., Williams, B. (1990), Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge University Press.