Question

How would you balance the public services duty to loyalty, privacy and confidentiality against the public's right to know?

Should the identity of the whistleblowing public servants be made public? Why? Why not?

Should whistleblowers be protected by law? If yes, how do you avoid slanderous whistleblowing?

Answer 1

As per the duty ethics, one should fulfil one’s duty without worrying about the consequences and utilitarian ethics suggests that an act would be considered ethical if it maximizes benefits to maximum number of people while virtue ethics places emphasis on the character of people. This would mean that people should be able to work towards their duty by maximizing the benefit for the people they serve thus proving themselves as virtuous people. Thus, whistle blowers bring out the unethical activities of their organization both public and private. This would mean that they should be protected by law because their action of whistle blowing helps many people, especially the public and they don’t do it for themselves. Thus, their names and other personal information should be kept secret in order to protect them and the companies should work towards changing the problem behaviours and focus on making remedies to the damages they made to the public.

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