Ethical Decision-Making

“A man without ethics is like a wild beast unleashed on the world.” This quote from the French writer Alfred Camus nicely sums up the importance of ethics. While philosophers may argue about the definition of ethics, at its core is the idea of doing the right thing—standards of behavior that tell us how we should act. Since decision-making is choosing among alternatives, ethical decision-making is considering standards of conduct when making choices.

Ethical decision-making requires work, as doing the right thing often does. The work is worth the effort. If you always strive to make ethical choices, you will be a success. Many authors have proposed various procedures for making ethical decisions. One that we like comes from the Ethics Resource Center. It incorporates the PLUS set of questions to keep you on track (http://www.ethics.org/resource/plus-decision-making-model). The PLUS questions whether an alternative: