Ronald L. Jenkins, Ph.D.

Course Outline

Most likely you are a manager and/or a professional decision maker. Your decisions in the work place affect any number of people. Because other people are affected, your decisions are ethical in nature. The purpose of this short course in ethics will be for you to formulate your own ethic relevant to the work place, your community and the happenings in your personal lives. But more important, this course will provide the theory necessary to categorize the ethical stand of other people. In so do, you should become better at understanding those with counter arguments, knowing how and why their ethical stands differ from your own.

This course includes a multiple choice quiz at the end.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the students will

• develop a basic understanding of the ethical theories that have come to be a foundation of our sense of morality. The theories include natural law, divine command theory, relativisms, egoisms, utilitarianism, deontology and rights theory; and
• be able to apply these theories of ethics to professional and personal decision making.
  

Course Content

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Appendix

Moral Arguments or Making Moral Decisions (PDF file 15 KB) has been included as an appendix for general information.

Course Summary

In final conclusion, ethics has a gray area. You can draw one conclusion using utilitarian theory and another using deontological theory. The moral basis behind natural law, the divine command theory and ethical relativism further widens this gray area. Even within this gray area, you should be able to derive your own personal moral philosophy. You should know why you think a particular action is right or wrong. More important, in discussion with other people or colleagues you should be able to understand how and why they derive their ethical conclusions. You will find everyone to be different but you will be able to see them eye to eye. In final conclusion, ethics has a gray area. You can draw one conclusion using utilitarian theory and another using deontological theory. The moral basis behind natural law, the divine command theory and ethical relativism further widens this gray area. Even within this gray area, you should be able to derive your own personal moral philosophy. You should know why you think a particular action is right or wrong. More important, in discussion with other people or colleagues you should be able to understand how and why they derive their ethical conclusions. You will find everyone to be different but you will be able to see them eye to eye.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.