Facts

ABC company is planning on building a new adult entertainment retail store and they have asked
Luke, one of their employees, to work on the project. The store is going to be built in the
neighborhood where Luke’s brother currently resides. Luke is worried that once the new
development is publicly announced in a month the new store will negatively affect the value of
homes in the neighborhood. Owen, Luke’s brother, is currently considering an offer on his house
but thinks he could get a better offer in the next couple of years when the market improves. Luke
has obligations of confidentiality to ABC but Luke also has a close relationship with his brother
and feels obligated to help him.

Issue
Luke is torn between his obligations to his company and his obligations to his brother. As an
employee Luke has an ethical obligation to maintain confidentiality to his company, if he were to
tell his brother Owen about the project before ABC publicly announces it then he could get in
trouble at work or possibly even lose his job. But on the other hand Luke has an obligation to
make sure his brother Owen and his family are safe and secure, and this information Luke has
can be the deciding factor in his brother being secure or making a bad decision by not selling his
home before the store is built. Luke must choose the best decision.

Analysis-Application of Ethical Lenses/Theories

The Golden Rule

The first theory that Luke should consider is the Golden Rule, which basically states that one
should treat people the way that they themselves would want to be treated by others. So to apply
the Golden Rule to this situation we must examine how Luke would like to be treated if he was
to trade places with either of the parties involved. First let’s look at the scenario from Owen’s
point of view, meaning if Luke and Owen were to switch roles. If Owen had information that
could benefit Luke, then Luke would surely want to know this information so that he can benefit.
However if Luke knew that Owen could lose his job by disclosing this information he may not
want Owen to disclose it anymore because he would be putting Owen’s career in danger. This
scenario highlights one of the fundamental problems with the Golden Rule theory, it does not
take into account that Luke may not be an ethical individual and he may choose to hear the
beneficial information regardless of the consequences on Owen’s career. Now let’s look at the
scenario from Luke’s customers and co-workers point of view. If one of Luke’s co-workers were
to disclose confidential information to benefit their brother Luke would clearly see the action as
unethical. The same goes for a customer, if Luke was a customer of ABC Company and the
company did not keep his information confidential he would be very upset and would see this as
an unethical action as well. Based off the simple conclusion that Luke would not like to be
treated this way the Golden Rule concludes that the ethical choice would be to keep the project
confidential. The Golden Rule is a great philosophy to use when dealing with everyday ethical
dilemmas. It can be consistently used in most situations and the benefit of the Golden Rule in
these situations is how quick and easy it is. Despite the practicality of the Golden Rule, it does
not translate very well to Luke’s scenario because of a few issues. First, it assumes that everyone
will act ethically and logically, which we know is not the case in real life encounters. Second, it
assumes that everyone wants to be treated the same way that the individual would want to be
treated, which is not always true because people’s ideology differs greatly on most topics.
Finally, the Golden Rule requires someone to put themselves in another’s shoes, which not
always effective because people can have a narrow expectation of how everyone should act and
this can make it difficult for people to see other’s perspectives.

Virtue Ethics

The second theory Luke should consider is Virtue Ethics, which is a way of thinking about how
to behave virtuously. Virtue Ethics asks the question “what kind of person do I want to be?”,
which in Luke’s case can be rephrased to “do I want to be honest and trustworthy to my
employer?”, or “do I want to be loyal to my brother and his family?”. If Luke were to tell Owen
about the new project he would be helping Owen, which according to Virtue Ethics would make
Luke a “good brother”. However by disclosing this confidential information he would be looked
at negatively by his employer and co-workers, so the question arises, what does Luke value
more, his loyalty to his company or to his brother? Luke’s scenario is not as much about making
a right or wrong decision as it is about him choosing what he values more. The problem with
making decisions based on the Virtue Ethics philosophy is that it is completely subjective
because the definition of being a “good individual” can change from person to person. In Luke’s
case it is hard for an outsider to judge the situation because they don’t know whether being loyal
to his brother is more important to him than being a trustworthy and honest employee. In
addition to these questions about loyalty, Luke should also take into account the disclosure rule,
which asks if you would be comfortable with all your family and friends knowing about the
action you propose to take. Would Luke be comfortable reading about what he did on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal or the local paper. While we cannot answer these ethical
questions for Luke, it is safe to assume that Luke would not feel comfortable having everyone
know that he was an untrustworthy employee even if it was to benefit his brother. Based off this
assumption Virtue Ethics would conclude that the ethical decision would be for Luke to keep the
project confidential.

Universal Ethics

The third theory Luke should consider is Universal Ethics, or “Kantianism”. Kantianism states
that an action is only ethical if it should be a universal law that everyone should follow all the
time. So in Luke’s case this means that if he were to inform Owen of the project then that would
mean it is always okay for employees to disclose confidential information about the company.
Obviously this would not be ethical because businesses could not operate effectively if there was
no trust or confidentiality. Just because Owen is Luke’s brother does not mean that an exception
can be made. Kantianism does not allow any flexibility, the ethical decisions are straight forward
all the time and cannot be changed from one situation to another. From a Kantian point of view
Luke’s loyalty to his brother is not even considered because universal ethics is based on
universal law, and since it is not universally okay for employees to divulge confidential company
information to people outside of the company then it is also not okay for Luke to do the same,
even if it is for his brother. So through this lens it is never ethical for an employee to divulge
confidential information, the only issue is that universal ethics only takes into account one factor
when making this decision which makes it difficult for someone like Luke to use this lens
confidently.

Utilitarianism

The final theory Luke should consider is Utilitarianism. According to utilitarianism the ethical
decision is the one that does more good than harm for the greatest number of people, meaning
that if one person is harmed for the benefit of a larger number of people then the action is ethical.
So if Luke were to tell Owen he would be helping Owen positively, but conversely, this would
have a negative effect on ABC Company and its customers. This kind of breach could even
result in Luke losing his job at the company. Also customers will be less likely to trust ABC
Company in the future, and therefore, less likely to hire them. Owen’s neighbors will be
negatively affected as well. Owen would gain an advantage over his neighbors by learning this
confidential information, which will hurt his neighbors because they will be stuck trying to sell
their houses at a bad time. Therefore, this decision would have negative consequences for many
of ABC Company’s employees as well as Owen’s neighbors. So according to utilitarianism if
Luke does not tell Owen then Owen will suffer but it will be the ethical choice because there are
more people that stand to suffer in ABC Company.

Conclusion
Analyzing the situation through these different lenses can give an individual a better idea of the
ethical dilemmas they are dealing with. Each of these lenses have their respective pros and cons
but to make a decision one must find a lens that takes into account all of the factors and
examines how ethical they are as a whole. To summarize briefly, Utilitarianism states that many
more people will suffer if Luke divulges this information. This would include Luke’s co-
workers, clients, and Owen’s neighbors. Whereas if Luke keeps the information confidential,
only Owen suffers. Universal Ethics also concludes that Luke should keep the development
confidential because it is universal law to always maintain confidentiality to your employer. The
Golden Rule also concludes that Luke should keep the development confidential because if he
was a stakeholder in the company he would want the employees to keep this information
confidential. Virtue Ethics is subjective in this case, and we do not know what is important to
Luke, so Virtue Ethics technically could justify either position. While all of these lenses
answered a specific ethical question from the scenario, I found that Utilitarianism was the only
one that deeply analyzed all of the factors. Utilitarianism allows the whole situation to be
considered instead of just claiming a certain action is unethical. That is why I believe it is the
proper way to analyze this scenario. Through the lens of Utilitarianism, Owen’s suffering is not
comparable to the suffering that ABC Company and its employees will have to deal with if Luke
divulges the confidential information. In conclusion, as a representative of the Ethics Department
of ABC Company, my recommendation to Luke is keep the development of the adult retail store
confidential.