Virtue, Care, and Justice in Real-World Business Ethics
This paper examines three foundational ethical perspectives — virtue, care, and justice — as described by Russ Shafer-Landau in Ethical Theory: An Anthology (2nd ed.), and applies them to a real-world business dilemma. The case study, drawn from Bargerstock and Shi (2014), follows a certified management accountant who discovers potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations at her employer, Watson Water Technologies. The paper defines each ethical framework, traces the accountant's moral reasoning as she weighs personal loyalty against professional obligation, and concludes that all three perspectives together can guide decision-making even in highly complex workplace situations.
- Introduction: Overview of three ethical frameworks and paper scope
- Three Ethical Perspectives: Virtue, Care, and Justice: Definitions of virtue, care, and justice ethics
- The Watson Water Technologies Case Study: Accountant discovers potential FCPA violations at employer
- Applying the Ethical Frameworks: Protagonist weighs professional duty against personal loyalty
- Conclusion: Three frameworks together guide complex ethical decisions
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What makes this paper effective
- Concisely defines all three ethical frameworks before applying them, giving readers a clear conceptual baseline.
- Grounds abstract theory in a concrete, peer-reviewed case study, demonstrating how academic frameworks translate to real workplace decisions.
- The conclusion synthesizes all three frameworks into a single interpretive statement about the protagonist's behavior, tying theory and application together neatly.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied ethical analysis: it introduces theoretical frameworks, presents a case with genuine moral complexity, and then uses the frameworks as lenses to evaluate the protagonist's choices. This structure — define, contextualize, apply — is a standard technique in applied ethics writing and serves as a useful model for students working in business ethics or professional responsibility courses.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing introduction that previews the three theories and the case study. A combined review-and-discussion section defines virtue, care, and justice, then introduces and narrates the Watson Water Technologies dilemma in detail. A brief conclusion synthesizes the frameworks as they apply to the protagonist's conduct. Two references are cited in APA style throughout.
Introduction
As the marketplace continues to become globalized, managers in all sectors are increasingly confronted with ethical business dilemmas that defy easy solutions. Although every business dilemma is unique, they can be examined using three ethical perspectives — virtue, care, and justice — as described by Russ Shafer-Landau in Ethical Theory: An Anthology (2nd ed.). This paper discusses the most important principles of each of these three theories, followed by an examination of a real-world ethical business dilemma reported in the peer-reviewed literature. A summary of key findings is provided in the conclusion.
Three Ethical Perspectives: Virtue, Care, and Justice
The ethical perspective of virtue refers to the capacity of human beings to resist taking the easy way out in favor of doing the right thing, irrespective of the personal sacrifices that may be involved. In other words, virtue means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Conversely, the ethical perspective of care refers to the concern that people demonstrate for their own welfare and the welfare of others. The ethical perspective of justice is more nuanced, but generally refers to achieving an equitable and mutually satisfactory resolution to a conflict between two or more parties.
Clearly, each of these three ethical perspectives exists along a continuum wherein people exhibit these qualities in varying degrees from time to time and over time. All three, however, form the foundation of ethical decision-making — a quality that is urgently needed in the 21st-century workplace.
References
Bargerstock, A. & Shi, Y. W. (2014, July). Watson Water Technologies: An ethical dilemma in the workplace. Strategic Finance, 96(1), 48–51.
Shafer-Landau, R. (Ed.). (2012). Ethical theory: An anthology (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
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