Whitney Turner
ENG 102
Argumentative Synthesis
5 Oct. 2014
Guidelines for Ethical Decisions
How does someone know when to open his or her mouth and say something
versus not saying anything at all? How does one depict the correct situation to say
something and to make an ethical decision? I have produced a set of guidelines to help
me make these types of decision. My guidelines are based on the essays of: “The Bank
Teller,” (308), “The Case of the Collapsed Mine” by Richard T. De George (288-289),
and lastly, “Should I Protect a Patient at the Expense of an Innocent Stranger?” by Chuck
Klosterman (308). I also am using steps illustrated from “A Framework for Thinking
Ethically,” by Manual Velasquez, Dennis Moberg, and Michael J. Meyer (291-296), and
“Moral Inquiry,” by Ronald F. White (296-299).
Ethical decisions are based solely on the situation in which one is presented.
Some situations call for a person to do something others think are less ethical, while other
situations are clear, and a well-defined ethical solution can be found. In the “Case of the
Collapsed Mine,” (288-289) De George writes about this incident that happened in West
Virginia. The manager was faced with a decision that could cost men their lives and when
it did, he was then faced with either saving the lives of 8 men and losing several millions
of dollars or deciding if that sum of money was worth their lives. This story explains the
decisions that some might not always see as ethical. Now in the story of “The Bank
Teller” the decision is whether or not to tell someone in charge that a girl is taking money
from a dormant account from a bank because her daughter became extremely ill. She also
says she is paying the money back and that she just needed it for the time being. This
could be seen as an ethical decision to not tell anyone because she is paying it back and
she needed it.
My guidelines or steps in making decisions like these come from White and his
steps to ethical decision making. In Whites “Moral Inquiry” he describes theories that
help a person chose which is best to go about a situation. Teleological Theories pinpoint
the consequences of the behavior rather then the behavior itself. People who follow this
theory take in the consequences of a specific action and make a decision based on those
consequences. A big question teleological people ask themselves is, “Would the
