Jared Cox

Ethics Essay
EE 394
5/1/22

Ethics are an integral part of life. They are principles that dictate how one will behave or

go about handling a given situation. Every individual has their own, whether they realize it or

not. These principles can be unique to an individual and be dictated by one’s own experiences in

life. They may be learned or taught by someone else. In an organization a code of ethics can be

implemented, to serve as the ethics for a collective despite one’s own beliefs. I think it is

important for an organization to have its own code of ethics, as ethics can differ from person to

person. By instating a code, an organization can ensure that the individuals of a group represent

the ideas and morals of the organization and achieve its mission.

Given an ethical situation, deciding how to handle it may not be easy. This is often a

matter of picking the lesser of two evils. Deciding what the better outcome is comes down to

individual ethics or a code instated by the organization you represent. Personally, when given an

ethical situation, there are a few things I think about to help guide my decision. What is the

overall desired outcome of the situation? What factors are at play to have interrupted the

achievement of this outcome? What decision best represents integrity, fairness, and the best

result for everyone involved? Ethical situations affect others and I feel it is important to be

selfless in these situations.

In our group the most discussed issue was the amazon issue. In this situation the police

had requested that Amazon release the recordings an Amazon echo had collected in a house

where a suspected murder had happened. Amazon had refused to do this. I felt that this was the

correct decision. Amazon did not want to give up private information about their customer. This

to me represents them sticking to their beliefs, despite the pressure from law enforcement. This is
Jared Cox
Ethics Essay
EE 394
5/1/22
part of the 5 P’s in John C Maxwell’s book “There’s No Such Thing as Business Ethics, There’s

Only One Rule for Making Decisions”. I think most everyone had agreed that this was the

correct thing to do. One had mentioned they were split on the decision. The conflicting idea was

that, although a company keeping user information private is correct, helping solve a murder

case could be the morally correct thing to do.

The three virtues of ethics that stand out to me given this situation with Amazon are;

Integrity, Fidelity, and Responsibility. Integrity is standing by one’s morals or ethics. In this case

I feel amazon did that by continuing to protect customer information, despite being requested by

law enforcement to release it. Fidelity was represented by Amazons faithfulness to their

customer. Finally, responsibility. Amazon is responsible for so many people’s information, and

they accountable for that information not being accessed by those who are not permitted. The

three others I felt were less important, but one could argue with these as to why amazon made

the wrong choice. These three are; honesty, charity and self-discipline. Honesty can often be

seen as being open about information, in this case they were not. Charity comprises of

compassion and mercy, which to their client, they did that. However, it could be seen that not

helping solve a murder does not show compassion or mercy for the victim. Lastly, self-discipline

I feel was the least important here. This involved a company rather than an individual. I feel

these 6 virtues cover the ethical situation at hand. Although anyone could argue differently than

me based on what these virtues mean to them.

Ethics can be interpreted differently by others. however, I feel that ethics, for the most part, can

be agreed upon. I feel morals must be learned, but as a society and as a collective we have
Jared Cox
Ethics Essay
EE 394
5/1/22
similar morals. Sticking to a code of ethics will usually aid in the correct decisions being made,

as difficult as they may be to make.