ETHICS AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

1. You are the lunchtime host at a popular restaurant. The waiting list is 30 minutes long. A customer offers you $20 to seat his party next. Would it be ethical to accept the offer? Explain your answer.

2. How do we know whether or not something is ethical? What does “ethical” mean?

3. Compile and bring to the next class a written list of five business situations in which people must make ethical decisions. The examples can be taken from home, school, work, TV shows or movies. For each situation, state:

a) What ethical question was raised?
b) Do you think the answer was easy or difficult?
c) How was the question resolved?
d) How would you have resolved it?"

4. When you accept a job, what does the employer owe you, and what do you owe the employer?

5. What is the obligation of a salesperson to a customer?

6. Draft a brief code of conduct specifying the rules that employees should follow in treating co-workers, including supervisors and subordinates, with respect.

7. How often to you think about whether something is right or wrong before you make a choice? If you care about doing the right thing, does that make your choices easier or harder?

8. How important is it to you to be a moral and ethical person? Why?

Tina Walsh
Lake Taylor HS
Norfolk VA