November 24, 2019
BAM 312 Business Communications
Unit #1
Question # 1 Explain the difference between an ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse.
Ethics refers to that body of principles which together determine how an individual behaves in a
certain decisional situation or how they choose to conduct a certain activity. Ethics cannot be
separated from morals.
An ethical dilemma exists when an individual must choose between two possibilities or
decisions, neither of which would be made without being at fault concerning the alternative.
Suppose an individual must make a choice between stealing food to feed their family or to go
without food and starve. In this scenario, stealing food is ethically wrong. On the other hand,
failing to provide food to feed one’s family would be wrong as well. In this situation, a person
would be both morally wrong but ultimately right. The dilemma comes from choosing one over
the other.
An ethical dilemma should not be confused with an ethical lapse, which is an isolated mistake in
judgement which causes harm. In an ethical dilemma, it is possible for the decision made by that
individual to result in a positive end whereas a decision made from an ethical lapse will always
lead to an undesirable outcome. A person involved in an ethical lapse faces no dilemma, one has
only made an error in judgement and the consequence might not be predictable? In the case of
an ethical dilemma, the outcome is known. An example of an ethical lapse would be when I
stole a shirt from the Mall, simply because I wanted to see if I would get caught. I didn’t even
need the shirt but as a kid it was challenging. The benefit was for my pleasure and the negative
impact was to the store owner by losing money and inventory. For this lapse in judgement my
mother called the police to scare me into returning the shirt. The outcome was punishment and