ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on four domains: business, leadership, education, and research. Ethics position theory suggests the answer may depend, in part, on one’s personal moral philosophy. Such judgments, however, are rarely unanimous ones, for disagreement and conflict are the rule, rather than the exception, in discussions of research ethics. The absolutist questions the moral inconsistencies of the subjectivist. The situationist demands to know the specifics of any particular context before forming an appraisal. The most serious of these workplace infractions are universally condemned, but as is the case with moral judgments in general, people often disagree when judging the rightness and wrongness of many common business practices. The divergence is one of degree, but it is nonetheless a reliable one: Idealists are harsher and relativists are more lenient when judging the morality of other people’s actions. A company’s executive leadership decides to relocate a factory overseas, causing economic ruin for the local residents.
