Pondering on an ethical dilemma

Walking back home today, I did some thinking about an Ethics assignment coming up: to write an ethical dilemma that I have faced in business. I came up to some conclusions about Ethics that I tied to Gospel principles.


The first conclusion is that as well as there are sins of omission and of commission there are also ethical violations of omission and of commission. Ethical commission violations arise when we dilute others into thinking that evil is good, when we cover up a problem from the eye of our manager, or when we wrongly diminish someone to make us look better. But omission violations can be sometimes more subtle and easy to forget or overpass, perhaps because commission requires you to do something while omission simply requires you to do nothing. For example, when we talk about stealing the first thing we think of is a burglar taking away someone else’s belongings instead of thinking of the money we might owe someone and if we don’t pay back we are also stealing. Simply put, I can remember more clearly things I’ve done than things that I’ve left undone.


The second conclusion is that of ethical transgression. As well as Adam transgressed a law to satisfy another, I ask myself if there might be occasions in which one has to break an ethical law to preserve a higher one. This taught came to me from an ethical dilemma in my life. In this dilemma, I did not denounce a previous employee to the authorities in order to preserve the physical integrity of my family and my own. Did I do wrong in not denouncing the person? I don’t have an answer, but I do prefer to see my family alive than to take someone to court. I let go of an ethical obligation for a higher obligation towards my family.


The latter thought brings me to my last conclusion. One might break an ethical “law” for many causes, because of ignorance, for personal gain, for vengeance, among others. However, I consider that the biggest reason why a commonly ethical person might violate its beliefs is because of intense pressure. He has neither the desire nor the ignorance but the pressure is so big that he finally yields in. This can easily be seen in the case Riding a Fine Line that I saw in class. It talks about a train out of control that is heading towards a family having a picnic on abandoned train tracks. You can see them from afar but there is nothing you can do to save them except to pull a lever that will divert the train to another path that will only kill a lonely fisherman who is fishing while seated on the tracks. There is nothing you can do to warn the lonely man or to save him once you pull the lever. The answer here is to follow the deontology ideology instead of utilitarianism, in other words, follow the ethical law of not being responsible of killing someone instead of thinking what the final outcome will be, for example, save the family since they have children and they are not lonely. My point comes across when we do a little adjustment to the case. What if that family having the picnic is your own family and you are the one with the hand on the lever? I don’t know about the rest, but for myself that is way too much pressure to handle. I wonder in that case, how many would not pull it.