Reference no: EM133150562

The "E" in ASPIRE emphasizes that a person's emotional connection to the dilemma must be recognized and dealt with or it will skew the analysis. Chapter 15 outlines this crucial aspect of getting in touch with your innermost feelings. When analyzing any dilemma, prior to coming to a final decision, it is imperative that you hold that mirror up to your own goals and prejudices. This is the time to really be honest with oneself.

This is not a time to say what is politically correct, this is the time to flush out what you truly believe at your core. It is not often possible to ignore your emotional feelings, but if you can recognize that your emotionally invested you should be able to better separate your intense feelings to help make a more objective analysis.

You may have a visceral reaction to how someone looks or their personality or some past issue. If you ignore that emotion your analysis will be skewed. If a person is not honest with themselves about their deep-seeded beliefs they will be unable to objectively look at issues. Once a person flushes out their true feelings, they have a chance to rationally analyze the large issues without slanting the view.

RELIGION & ASHLEY MADISON

We brought up earlier where your ethics come from and we listed several sources including parents, media, friends etc. One not previously mentioned is religion. Religion is a real lightening rod for this subject. Many will say they get their ethical foundation from religion and that is certainly a factor. Religion becomes controversial when it is used to justify unethical behavior. The chapter of the text on law and ethics has a section on religion because too many equate religion and ethics.

Religion and ethics are NOT synonymous. Many people who have no religion are very ethical. Further, some who claim to be very religious are not ethical. The best example is 9-11. The Twin Towers in New York were destroyed and thousands killed in the name of religion. The group that caused 9-11 uses religion to rationalize their acts. The use of religion to justify horrific actions occurs all too often. The Crusades killed thousands in the name of religion.

A physician who performs abortions was killed by people saying they were acting ethically because of their religion. There have been groups calling themselves Christian fundamentalists interfering with military funerals because the military allows homosexuals to enlist and the group is against homosexuals (this horrible group calls themselves the "god hates fags" group). The use of religion to justify unethical actions is not as rare as we would hope.

The use of religion as the reasoning often stops all conversations on a subject. The beliefs you have may be very important . . . to you. There are many different religions and understanding your view may be viewed as narrow and self-serving if you do not acknowledge other views and beliefs. The opinion that your way is the only way may be detrimental to making fair decisions since that may limit alternatives, perspectives, and causes you to fail to recognize many issues including your own prejudices and goals.

Some philosophers even go so far as to say an atheist is by nature more ethical than a very religious person since the religious person does good because either the fear of hell and damnation or the thought of a reward in heaven. Thus the religious person's good acts may be performed out of the fear of being caught by a deity or looked on with favor and getting a nice after-life. Wherein a non-religious person does good acts for the sake of a universal thought of being ethical and good with no worry about punishment or reward being held over their head.

It is more about actions over claimed convictions. Does a person attend church or a mosque or temple every Sunday but treat people disrespectfully the rest of the week? Religion also serves a good purpose and can be a source of good ethical teachings, but like anything else can be misused and abused to rationalize unethical behavior.

Do you put your interests well above the society? A major ethical problem is moral exclusion. One group excludes other persons and discounts the moral standing of individuals outside "the group." This has been the case with people of different religions, cultures, colors, genders and national origins. It is not only what you do that may be wrong, but what a person fails to do that may be the ultimate ethical violation.

Interesting stuff. What we know is that when religion and ethics intersect an open minded discussion leads to better understanding and often a common ground can be found and at least it maximizes the prospects for more and better alternatives.

As long as we are on the topic of religion, a look at the Ten Commandments gives us some ethical lessons. Thou shall not kill. Well that sounds pretty absolute. But then we have all sorts of ethical dilemmas. War for one. The death penalty for another. Even euthanasia. As we have learned what seem to be hard and absolute principles often seem to fall apart under exceptions.

Is it ok to kill in a war? Countries all seem to make their involvement in a war an admirable choice, but there are always at least two sides to that war. Hmmmmmm.

Ending someone's life because they are suffering is euthanasia. It is legal in Oregon, but is it ethical. You would put your pet down if the vet said it was suffering with no chance to recover, but is that ethical for a human. The human can consent unlike the pet. So what do you think? Would you legalize euthanasia here like in Oregon?

How many of you know about the dating site for married people- Ashley Madison? Okay, you can put your hands down. This is a great business discussion since it is a business model that takes advantage of those who are married but want to have affairs with other married people. (Another commandment violated -the not coveting the neighbor's wife one -hey what about coveting the neighbor's husband?) The sign-ups have skyrocketed and this business is booming. More on this topic (Ashley Madison) later in the lecture.

Here is an interesting question. elaborated in greater detail in chapter 27. You are married. You are out of town and staying at a nice hotel alone on business. You have finished your evening meeting and are walking to your room.

As you pass a room, the door is ajar. There is a person lying on the bed motioning for you to come in. The person is your dream man or woman be it Brad Pitt or Beyonce or George Clooney or Jennifer Aniston or . . . well you get the idea. It is clear from your brief encounter they want to have sex with you. In answer to the questions that some of you are thinking, No, your spouse will not find out-No, you will not get any diseases- No, no one gets pregnant- No, this is a one and done and there will be no calls, letters or any other form of communication. -No one else will ever know.

So the question is: Will you have sex with the person of your dreams in the perfect scenario?

You don't have to email me the answer, but be honest with yourself. That (being able to be honest with yourself-acknowledging your own prejudice etc.) is one of the required aspects of the method we have been utilizing. I can tell you in my 12 years of teaching when I ask that question and the students are allowed to answer anonymously there is about 20-25% of the class who will say they would have sex with the person of their dreams under the scenario I have set forth. Do you think it would be more males than females who would say yes to the night of unbridled sex even though they are married?

So, you may know there are many studies including but not limited to Masters and Johnson sex studies that measure this. Those studies ask if a married person has cheated on their spouse. The numbers in the surveys who actually have an extra-marital affair are always far greater than the percentage of students in my class who say they would have extra-marital relations in the scenario above.

Now isn't that fascinating! I give the perfect scenario where no one is hurt (guilt only), no diseases, no entanglements and the person of your dreams and yet the percentage of people who say they would have sex is less than half of what happens in the real world.

What happens between the principles and reality? In the real world over 50% of spouses will cheat AND those people do not get the guarantees I have given my students (you). In the real world they are not promised their spouse won't find out. Nor are they assured there are no diseases, no pregnancies, no communication after the act, no . . . well no entanglements AND in the real world they are not getting the person of their dreams. It is not Angelina Jolie or Channing Tatum, yet the actual cheating is double the amount of students who get pitched the dream person scenario.

What happens? Remember the change from ethical action to unethical behavior is not a jump but generally a gradual slope. You have principles and rules for yourself, but too often they get eroded by rationalizations or other ethical pitfalls.

In the real world perhaps the spouse was abusive or cheated on you Or maybe they changed or you changed or . . . you fill in the blank. The point is, you need to try and understand why the behavior you think is right goes out the window in many situations.

A person wants to work for charity when they are in college. They promise themselves they will when they have a good job. That happens and now the person doesn't fulfill the promise to themselves for reasons that may run from "I am too busy" to "those people deserve their woes and I am not fostering their problems" to "If I have extra time, it is me time" to . . . well you get the idea.

Should you hold to your beliefs? Well sometimes is a sign of growing to change beliefs if you have new information. But it may be the sign of moving down that slippery slope of unethical actions to give up principles based on speed, greed, laziness, and other danger marks.

So now we get back to Ashley Madison. Go to the site and see what it is about. You can also go online and read interviews with the founder and CEO Noel Biderman. Is starting and running this successful company worse than selling cigarettes? Or Doritos? Or alcohol?

Ashley Madison's advertising catch phrase is: "Life is short, have an affair." They call the members who have paid to be part of the Ashley Madison dating site part of the "infidelity nation." Presently there are over ten million members. Read chapter 20.

Here is your assignment for this week -

You have been approached by an executive search firm's representative who locates highly qualified executives for companies. You are presently the regional manager for a medical device company. In your present job you recommend and sell the hardware that is used by orthopedic surgeons for hip replacement surgery. You often scrub in on surgeries to help the doctor choose the best of several options of the hip replacement implant depending on arthritic damages, age, activity once the patient's hip is exposed at the commencement of the surgery. You earn $75,000.00 per year with a chance for an additional $20,000.00 in bonuses.

The head hunter says that Ashley Madison wants you as their next national marketing director for their website. They will give you a three-year guaranteed employment contract with a starting salary of $250,000.00 plus benefits and a chance to earn an additional $100,000.00 in bonuses per year based on the growth of the member base.

You are married with two children ages 5 and 7. Your spouse works part-time and earns $21,000.00 per year with no benefits. Analyze this job offer.