Question

You are walking out of the campus café/cafeteria and you spot a money clip on the floor just under the edge of the condiments counter. You quickly pick it up and shove it into your pocket as you peruse the room to see if anyone noticed your actions. Once you get to your dining table and feel confident that no one has seen you, you look at the money clip only to find that it holds sixty-five dollars. Having just spent two-hundred and seventy bucks on books and supplies in the bookstore, you could really use the cash. What do you do?

Use two of the eight ethical frameworks we have studied in this course (from the Ethical Frameworks Worksheet) to support your decision. Be sure to be specific as to why that framework is being applied and the tenets of the ethical perspective that work in each case.

Answer 1

In the given scenario, I     will not utilize the money for my own sake. Rather I will deposit Money Clip at the Customer Help Desk or Reception counter of the Coffee shop stating that someone has left his or her money clip and I will urge the concerned authorities to find the owner of the Money Clip and to handover the Money Clip to the Identified Owner.

My decision is based on the two ethical frame works.

1. Rights Based Framework

A rights-based ethical framework calls on us to do what most respects the moral rights of any people involved in an ethical decision. This approach also seeks to look at every person as an end, in and of themselves, rather than the means to an end.So while applying this framework to this present situation, I feel that it is better to handover the money clip to its real Owner. Moreover I have found that it is morally wrong to pick one’s property and claims as mine.

1. Virtue based Ethical Framework

The virtue-based ethical framework is based solely on the person who is faced with an ethical dilemma. Under this self-reflective framework, a person must decide what virtues that she should morally strive for as a human being. By using this framework to this present scenario, I made an honest approach to the situation and deposited the money clip at the Counter of the Coffee shop with a request to return the money clip to its real Owner.