Ethics

In the ethical simulation Aaron Web an employee in the IT department of the company we worked for wrote a blog about some confidential information within in our company. It is against company policy for employees to release confidential information about our company. In this company it is my duty not to reward employees who violate the code of conduct or break the law, to honor employees' right to free expression even when they are critical of the company, and to ensure that privileged information about the company is not made public. After some investigation and an anonymous tip from another employee that hacked into Aaron’s home computer I decided that it would be best for our company to let Aaron go, because I felt that simply letting him off with a warning would not send a strong enough message to him and other employees about the seriousness of breaking company policy. Although Jamal Moore who I was told is a good employee and was diligent in investigating the situation to prove that our company network is not secure enough I thought it was best to let him go as well, because hacking into another employee’s personal computer is also against company policy and two wrongs do not make a right, nor did I think it would be ethical to fire one person for breaking company policy and not another. Personally I would have preferred to let Jamal off with a warning, because his supervisor did tell me that he is a good employee, and without the information he provided it would have been hard to catch Aaron, but to protect the company from a law suit I thought it was best to let him go as well. It was more important for me to think of what would be best for the company as a whole using Utilitarian ethics which focuses on the greater good for the greatest number of people in the company as well as Consequentialist Ethics which focuses on the consequences of a decision or action. I had to think about how other employee’s would react if this situation was taken lightly, as