In Santa Clara Markkula Center’s article titled A Framework for Ethical Decision Making, it begins what ethics are and what they are not. Follwing, the article descibres six ethical lenses for ethical decision making. Following the six approaches, the article describes how to use them when making ethical based decisions. The lenses include the rights lense, the justice lense, the unitarian lense, the common good lense, the virtue lense, and the care ethics lense.The article describes what ethics can be based on, since they are not based on things like religion or personal feelings.

These lenses go hand in hand with the five different value approaches expressed in the other article published by the Markula Center titled Thinking Ethically. I think these six approaches, paired with the different value approaches can be very beneficial when trying to make ethical decisions. I think thinking these things before making decisions could be very helpful to me throughout my life whether it be personal or professional settings. I think every business and corporation’s leadership teams should consider all of these approaches before making any decisions, as business ethics are so important. This could prevent alot of issues further down  the road within their business. While these will be very important and helpful in my own personal life, these are things all of the world should take into consideration and really prioritize. I think the world would be a better place if more and more people prioritize ethical decision making in businesses, politics, and personal life.

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. (2021, November 8). https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

The Santa Clara Markula Center’s article “Thinking Ethically” descibes how ethics is something that is apart of everyones life and is something everyone thinks about each day through different situations and scenarios. The article states that ethics do not just resolve around facts, for example what is right and wrong, but it also requires values, like why something is right and why something is wrong. Following, the artcile shares five different value approaches philosophers have developed to deal with ethics and moral issues. The five include the unitarian approach, the rights approach, the fairness of justice approach, the common-good approach, and finally the virtue approach. Following each approach, there are five questions that must be asked to comprehend ethical values.

For me personally, I like to consider myself a very fair person. I find it very upsetting when certain situtations are not fair to all. I understand that the world is unfair and not perfect, but I find it important and ethical to be as fair as possible. For example, class punishments. In elementary school, I was a very good kid, as I was terrified of getting in trouble not just at school, but at home. So when the class was misbehaving, but I was not apart of it, but we ALL got punished, I never thought that was right or ethical.

I think they world could also considere the Fairness of Justice Approach, as I think majority of our society are selfish and only care about their own good, instead of being fair and just.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, 2021, https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

While reading the article “40 years of storming: a historical review of Tuckman’s model of small
group development” by Denise A. Bonebright, I could not help but be reminded of the high level club soccer team I was a member of for two years. Obviously, a sports team requires lots of teamwork and working together to be successful. Soccer is not an individual sport, and requires lots of descipline and selflessness from all members of the team to ensure success on and off of the field. The four stage model described by Tuckerman included forming, storming, norming and performing. All four of these stages, my team experienced first hand. In the first stage, forming, my team did a good job at understanding what needed to be done, setting rules and expectations and respecting the team and the game. As time moved on, my team moved into the second stage, storming. Many issues began to occur as many people could not put their own pride and selfishness behind for the betterment of the team. Arugments between coaching staff, athletes and parents began to regularly occur. This began the third stage, norming, where everyone shared their own oponions on the issues the team was facing and “sides” or “groups” began to form. However, the performing aspect suffered. These issues did not bring our team together and allowed us to be problem solvers, it only caused more harm and issues. With that being said, the groups formed during the time of division became very close and worked together. I think this is something very prevalent and common in today’s society as many people put their own personal values above others and can be described as selfish.

Bonebright, Denise A. “40 Years of Storming: A Historical Review of Tuckman’s Model of Small Group Development”. Human Resource Development International, Feb. 2010, p. 113-114

After reading the article title “Personal Values and Performance in Teams: An Individual and Team-Level Anaylisis, I found it to be very interesting and though provoking. I enjoyed how it broke down Personal Values into four differnet setions. Personal values play a huge, important role in team atmospheres, as ethics and morals come into play. Especially considered evryone has differnet personal values, they can all fall into the same catrgoues behind personal values. In a team setting, I believe it is important for everyone apart of the team to have similar personal values, as I believe that is the best way for the team to be able to respect and work together, without creating a toxic environemnt. This makes it easier to understand why some people are just not a good fit within some teams, and why some teams work very well together and others dont. It is extremely important to discuss personal values and have a good understanding of every member of a team that you may be leading or apart of.

This article reminds me of a time when I was on student council in high school and had to work with a group to make important decsions for our graduatiing class. This team did not work well together, as the dynamics changed often and people could not agree or respect that other people have different oponions and values. This is something we see so often in the world today. Many companies and franchises begin having issues when leadership positions change, causing dynamics to change.

After reading the article, Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices by Ron Carucci, I can see a major connection between the text and my own personal life experiences. One main part of the story that reminded me of myself is feeling caution or lack of urgency to speak on an ethical topic simply because it was not “worth” the discussion, or argument, that could possibly form from simply speaking on a specific topic. “The first is the natural feeling of futility — feeling like speaking up isn’t worth the effort or that on one wants to hear it. The second is the natural fear that speaking up will lead to retribution or harsh reactions.” A manager’s reactions to an employee’s concerns sets the tone for whether or not people will raise future issues. If a leader reacts with even the slightest bit of annoyance, they are signaling they don’t really want to hear concerns.” In my own personal experience, there have been times where I have felt the urge to speak on a situation because I did not ethically agree with what was happening. However, I found myself proceeding with caution as I was hesitant of the reactions I may get. A lot of time I doubt my ability to defend where I stand on certain ethical situations as I am nervous to mess up under the pressure of a differing opinion. With the worry of negative reactions, speaking up becomes less appealing. This goes hand in hand with the natural feeling of futility. The thought of even starting an argument because of differing opinions makes one question whether or not it is really a valuable enough opinion to cause issues-if it is worth it or not.
In comparison to the article and the real world, one main thing stuck out to me at the beginning of the article. “I was shocked to find ordinarily good people I could well have had coffee with that morning. And they were still good people who’d made terrible choices.” I feel as if this is a very common occurrence in the real world. Good people can make poor choices, which can oftentimes be very surprising to see someone make an awful decision. When someone makes an unethical decision, it is easy to categorize them as a horrible person who does no good. However, when you already knew that person and built a relationship with them, it can make you realize that even the good people of this world mess up. I feel like it is very common for people to not realize that. Another thing that stuck out to me in regards to connecting the text to the world was that “Ethical behavior is not part of routine conversation.” Unfortunately, I feel that because we live in such a corrupt and morally unjust world, ethics is not at the forefront of most people’s minds. “You actually have to teach people the relative value of principles relative to choices. Leaders have to infuse everyday activities with ethical considerations and design policies and norms that keep ethics top of mind.” This proves how far our world is away from everyone being ethically minded, as most people only think about themselves and their personal gain.

Finally, I saw a major connection between this article and our Hot Topic Headline, the Titan submersible. Because of lack of ethics and corrupt leadership, a toxic workplace environment and culture was created. If the company was an ethics priority minded company, maybe things could have gone differently to prevent the issues, and eventually prevent the death of the passengers. This is why ethical thinking is important in companies and team atmospheres.

Carucci, Ron. “Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices.” Harvard Business Review, 16 Dec. 2016, hbr.org/2016/12/why-ethical-people-make-unethical-choices. Accessed 27 Aug. 2025.

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