Question 1
"Many cell phones now come equipped with cameras. Managers of health clubs are concerned that people in locker rooms may be secretly photographed by other members carrying small cell phones. What do you think about this? Discuss your answer based on one ethical principle of your choice."
Answer:
- As illustrated by this question, the act is clearly wrong and unethical because the person who conducted this act takes the photos of other members secretly, without their permission or consent. This is because it is humiliating as well as degrading for the affected parties where his or her photos have been secretly captured, and distributed to the public, their reputation, honor, and credibility and most importantly their life will be greatly affected.
In order to support this opinion, Kantianism will be used to further defined and supported why the act is considered as immoral and unethical. This is based on the ethical principle of Kantianism, specifically related to the second formulation which generally states that if the action done does not exploit other people without their consent then it is acceptable. If it does, the action is said to be unacceptable and unethical.
The issue here is that health clubs’ managers are afraid that people in locker rooms may become victims by the people with such devices. They may be photographed or even video recorded for the purpose of blackmailing or to an extent to gain pornography material, if the victims involve women in the locker room. The point is that, managers could not simply ban their members from bringing cell phones upon entry into their health facilities. This is because people these days are relying heavily on cell phones which they see as a very important communication device. They need to have them everywhere they go as means of communication. Banning cell phones might also have another devastating consequence to the health clubs that impose so. First off and most obvious is, they might be criticized by their customers. Secondly and eventually, customers would not go to those clubs, crippling the clubs’ economy which would lead to closedowns. Hence, managers should let customers bring their cell phones in and rest their shoulders onto the aforementioned second formulation of Kantianism. If the people really are making use of their cell phones in a positive way as they describe it, then let them be that way. Let them bring their cell phones inside. Managers could not stop this as this is what majority of the people wants.
Question 2
"Before offering a job candidate a position, some potential employers do a criminal background check of the candidate. What are the pros and cons of this policy? Is this ethical? Discuss your answer based on one ethical principle of your choice."
Answer:
- The group decided as such that this matter of looking up for criminal record of an employee is looked as a Social Contract Theory from the seven principle of ethics. Why is it so is because of this issue is concerning future matters. Social contract theory concerns about a group of people, in lots of case of working together. This matter has it’s pros on the matter that if an employee actually have a criminal record, employer can actually save his other employees from any other harms way given that the one with criminal record might be a threat to others. In another way, this can also be a bad thing when the employee does not have any criminal record, making him/her believe that the employer is abusing his personal details. Even so, we counts the positive. The company itself should have rights on checking on the employees for the sake of the company itself, and for it’s employees’ safety, thus making it an ethical and workable method.
Question 3
"Refer to the lecture slide for this week on Intellectual Property. Explain with example the following:
- Copyrights
- Patents
- Trademarks
- Trade secrets"
- Copyright: Gives the holder some exclusive rights to control some reproduction of works of authorship, for a certain period of time. copyright example would be a composer of a song. He has the right to reproduce his song to CDs and sell them. Distribute them to the interested party and also they can do a public display and public performance so that people can watch and see them and lastly they can derive another song from the ones that they have by using their own creativity and good composing skills.
- Patent: A public document that provides detailed description of invention. Patent example would be artistic work .this will protect the inventions for a period of 20 years from the date of application. It gives the owner the right to prevent others from making, using importing or selling the invention without permission.
- Trademark: Grants the owner exclusive right to use the trademark on the intended or related products for identification. Trademark example would be distinctive images like symbols, pictures, words. Distinctive & unique packaging. color combinations, building design, product Styles, overall Presentation
- Trade Secret: A trade secret reflects a wide array of information that derives independent economic value from not being widely disclosed or readily ascertainable. Enforceable for indefinite period of time. Trade secret example would be KFC. Their recipe is a trade secret which has given them commercial value. Trade secret can be identified through lawful methods of reverse engineering. Once the discovering of the trade secret, it has no more valid for the organization thus it will be advertised for public or meaning anyone can copy it, but as long as they are not known it will be advantage to the organization.
Question 4
"Discuss software duplicating from the perspectives of act utilitarianism."
Answer:
- Based on act utilitarianism, it is required to act in such that bring best outcome for most people (Prevos, 2004). Therefore, in act utilitarianism, software dupllicating is considered right as it allows the general public to obtain software at cheaper cost than original causing increase of happiness for more people compared to unhappyness of some software developers. However, in some cases where software duplicating can be considered wrong from view of act utilitarianism where general public are purchasing the duplicated software believing the software to be original from the promotion strategy of the duplicated software which then will cause dissatisfaction to most people.
References
Prevos, Peter, 2004. Rule and Act Utilitarianism. [online] Available at: <http://prevos.net/ola/utilitarianism.pdf> [Accessed 9 November 2011]
Posted in: Week 8 Exercise
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