Submitted by: Erika M. Lorenzo
How Good People Make Tough Choices
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Chapter 1: Overview: The Ethics of Right versus Wrong
“The really tough choices, then, don’t center upon right versus wrong. They involve right versus right.” In this chapter it discusses the wrongness and rightness of a certain topic or situation. In this book it stresses the viewpoint that tough choices are based on what is right against what is right. Usually there are four paradigms in this dilemma, these are the following: Truth versus loyalty, Individual versus community, Short-term versus long-term, and justice versus mercy.
In truth versus loyalty, let’s say for example the issue of whistle blowing of the engineers. If they knew something about a bad effect of a certain product or system, and they also knew that when they let it out to the public, they’re colleagues will be in danger. They have to decide on what to do. Both things are right, to tell the public its bad effect and to protect their colleagues.
The next paradigm would be Individual versus community. This is when a person tries to respect an individual’s right by not telling the public the person’s private life to others. But the public needs to know and crosses the line of privacy.
The third paradigm would be the short term versus long term. Given an example from the book, a father is having trouble choosing what to prioritize more. He can either have quality time for his growing up children and he can focus on his career for his long term foundation.
The last paradigm is justice versus mercy. This is when someone did something wrong to the public but you are torn in both decisions whether to condemn him or spare him because you show him mercy.
Chapter 2: Right versus Wrong: Why Ethics Matters
“A bit of reflection about long term consequences, individual motives, or moral rules makes it clear that neither of these cases involved a genuine ethical dilemma that pitted right against right. Instead, they exhibited a moral temptations that set right versus wrong…The world after all is full of wrong doings.”
Chapter two discusses how to be wrong. And it turned out that there are three ways to be wrong. Violation of law, departure from truth, and deviation from moral rectitude are the three ways for a person to be wrong.
If something is created in accordance to the norm of humanity, then this can only be the right option. If a person violates the norm he will turn out to be wrong. Law of course includes the codified ethics. It is also wrong when you do something that is not in line with what we think is true. It is also wrong if you backed out of your duty. Like for example you saw mischief and you did not report it to the authority, you are somehow held liable and guilt will run over you because you know you did something wrong.
Chapter 4: Core Values
“What they choose to accomplish may be wonderful or terrible: just as diligent firemen contribute to society’s well-being, so diligent con men detract from it.”
There are different values from different aspects. There are political values, economic values, culinary values, and many more. Code of ethics determines what is valuable to a particular group of people. Example for the Catholics, the ten commandments. There is also the boy scout law for the group of boy scouts. For the U.S. army, they have the The west point honor code. There is also the rotary four way test, Mcdonnell-Douglas code of ethics, The Minnesota Principles, and many more.
Every society has its own values. Different cultures value different things that other cultures might think weird. We just need to respect each other’s diversities and differences.