Facts
Luke has been invited to work on a project involving the development of property recently bought by ABC for the construction of an adult entertainment retail store. As per the plan, the land is on a corner in the area where Luke’s brother, Owen, resides. Luke is well aware that once the store’s intentions are made public, property prices in the nearby area will drop dramatically.
Issues
Should Luke share this knowledge with his brother Owen or keep it private? An ethical dilemma emerges in this case. We should consider what Luke should do by applying utilitarianism and universal ethics theories.
Analysis
Utilitarianism
In a nutshell, utilitarianism is understood as doing the best for most people. According to the utilitarian viewpoint, the most ethical choice provides the most good for the greatest number of people (Teck et al., 2018). According to this principle, an ethical decision is one that benefits the majority of stakeholders. Therefore, who are the potential stakeholders in this situation? Owen, Luke, and their families are stakeholders in this predicament, as are ABC Co. and its workers and investors, as well as the local community. We know for certain that the ABC Company would not gain from this circumstance. ABC would lose a competitive advantage if sensitive information was leaked. In order for Luke to alert his brother about the upcoming hits to the RE market, he must also leak information about the building of the adult entertainment retail store. Furthermore, disclosing this information may spark community outrage. Protests endanger all of the families in the town, as well as ABC Co. This is also not advantageous to Luke. He jeopardizes his job by disclosing secret information. If the homeowners file a lawsuit against ABC, Luke might be named as the source of the leak. Owen is the only shareholder who would gain from this. Owen would profit from this knowledge, but other house owners and families in the area would not, constituting only a small fraction of all stakeholders. Luke should not communicate this information with Owen through this technique.
Universal Ethics
According to universal ethics, an action is ethical if it should be a law that everyone must observe. These principles require that what we do should be what is acceptable to all people regardless of religion, gender, race, and other social differences (Fox, 2000). Universal ethics can be viewed as a type of moral constitution, expressed as a set of specific ethical principles that can be applied to each and every individual being (Sierra, 2020). By this approach, we should consider the influence of this move on ABC’s business and the community at large. By sharing this sensitive information with Owen, Luke gains the ability to sway the real estate market by making a better-educated decision based on this secret knowledge. This is detrimental to the real estate market. Furthermore, if Owen were dissatisfied with this knowledge, he might share it with other property owners in the area and organize a revolution against ABC firm. This may have an influence on ABC’s project by preventing them from building in this location, resulting in a negative impact on the company. This is not in Luke’s best interests as a valued employee and patron of ABC. According to universal principles, Luke should not disclose this knowledge.
Recommendations
Luke should not share sensitive information with Owen after reviewing all of the above facts. Each point leads us to believe that he is not providing the knowledge. Luke should keep the impending endeavor under wraps and let Owen make his own judgments.
References
Fox, C. (2000). The use of philosophy in administrative ethics. In T. Cooper (Ed.), Handbook of Administrative Ethics (pp. 104–130). essay, Routledge.
Sierra V. L. (2020). The dignity of persons: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism (dissertation). University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK.
Teck, T. S., How, L. C., Karuppiah, N., & Ho, C. J. (2018). Universalism and utilitarianism, two worlds apart or inextricably linked? Journal of Management and Sustainability, 8(1), 13.