Question

Anne is an established electrical engineer at Onerous, a computer hardware company. Not a stranger to incidences of favoritism the company, Anne recently encountered a particularly unfavorable scenario involving a few of her close co-workers.

Two employees, who had been newly hired, were given visible roles in a prominent project. Upon the project’s successful completion, the new-hires were given generous promotions by management. On the other hand, Anne’s co-workers were asked to play supporting roles in the project, and were not given any special recognition (i.e., promotions) for their work.

Anne’s non-confrontational co-workers were angry and came to Anne for advice since they knew she had broad professional experience. They told her that they were going to leave the company if management did not stop playing favorites.

Although strongly inclined to bring this matter up to her manager, Anne felt like doing so would be futile because her manager is stubborn and inflexible. How might this issue be perceived through the ethical prisms of utilitarianism, rights, justice,and virtue?

Answer 1

Before approaching to the moral solution of the issue, lets first discuss a few questions to clear out a perception.

Facts of the case?

• Anne is an Electrical Engineer at the renowned firm Onerous, which is a computer Hardware company.

• Along with this an unfavorable scenario involving the few of her close colleagues.

• Two new emloyees have been hired for a prominent project.

Ethical issues in the case?

• injustice done by giving order to new hires for working in a prominent project instead of the old workers.

Now let's come to the moral approaches one by one:

1. Utilitarianism : In this approach it is always being tried to give the greatest gogood to the greatest number of people. Now, a common and ethical approach is to create a policy that HR polocy is to be reviewed each year and common benefit of the same may be extended to each the employee by way of promotion at right time.

2. Rights.: In this approach it is tested whether free will has been given to each and every one to select the best for themselves . A willingness is to be asked from all the employees working in the firm for a particular project but with necessary desirable skill set, which is essential in performing the duties . This will not let anybody down and moral right has been awarded for each fellow.

3. Justice: In the approach, it is always preferred to do what is correct as per law instead of emotions of the participants. So in this case a proper promotion policy should be empaneled for all, so that when the right time comes desirable would be achieved by all.

4. Virtue: It is very abstract kind of approach, in which instead of focusing on law an evaluation of each co worker is suggested, so that a fair promotion policy may be extended to the needy and most suitable one.