Short Paper -- Evaluating a Business Ethics Case
Using Family-Based Moral Models

Instructor: Dr. Jan Garrett

Spring 2005

Revised January 14, 2005; minor rev. January 25

Due: Thursday, February 3, class time

Format:

legibly typewritten or word-processed

8.5 x 11 inch white paper

double-spaced (not single-spaced like web pages)

first line of paragraphs indented

one-inch margins

pages stapled together in upper left-hand corner

name, course and section, and date actually submitted (the upper right hand corner of the first page)

Length: 600-750 words. (Please supply me with a word count for this paper. Do not include directly quoted material as part of your word count. Of course, plagiarized material should not be in the paper at all! Read Prof. Glaser's web page on plagiarism.)

Note: I have decided to assign 6 percentage points to this assignment. The requested length has been increased to at least 600 words. These are slight changes from the Syllabus.

Consider one of the following case descriptions:

Merck pp. 2-4,
Goodrich p. 8,
Caltex pp. 70-72,
Microsoft pp. 88-90,
Chevy Station Wagon pp. 333-34

The basic assignment is to select one of these cases and evaluate it from the perspectives of Strict Father Morality and Nurturant Parent Morality and, if need be, the conceptual tools of Moral Accounting.

1) Set the stage with basic facts of the case. This section should be no more than 25 percent of the paper. Other facts may be integrated (as needed) with the remainder of the paper.

Do three of the following four steps. Step 5 requires that you have done steps 3 and 4.

2) Evaluate the actions in the case using the tools of "moral accounting."
3) Evaluate the (actions and persons in the) case from the perspective of SFM.
4) Evaluate the (actions and persons in the) case from the perspective of NPM.

Unless the only relevant family in a case is a family in the literal sense, steps 3 and 4 require you to determine the relevant metaphorical family in the case; otherwise, you will not be able to decide whether to evaluate the actions of persons as "parents" of "children," as "children" of "parents," or as "children" in relation to "other children." The metaphorical family is always some kind of community, such as a class, a university, a corporation, a business and its actual or potential customers, a more or less cohesive group of friends, a nation, or even humanity as a whole. In some cases, there will be more than one relevant community. The metaphorical parent may be present in the narrative or implicit in the background of the narrative.

Although I prefer that you concentrate on evaluating the actions and persons in the case from the perspectives of the family moral models, you may also evaluate the actions using (and citing) principles from the moral accounting section of the Lakoff article if they seem appropriate. Moral accounting principles may be applicable when interactions are of a short-term nature and it is not clear what the relevant "family" is.

5) Finally, try to find ways to synthesize the two perspectives, i.e., to integrate some conclusions from one perspective into a view primarily dominated by the other perspective.

Step 5 can perhaps be done more successfully by starting from NPM rather than SFM because SFM is less likely to be tolerant of diverse views! SFM, however, can permit some nurturant conduct toward subordinate individuals provided that the perspective of SFM remains dominant over-all.

I have done a sample essay applying this approach to the Pacific Bell case on pp. 334-35. For a second sample essay (but not directly related to a business ethics case), see Evaluation of Shirpad/Zanko Plagiarism Case.