Blog Assignment #10

(1) Choose one inquiry, from inquiries 1 - 28 (pages 114 - 117). Indicate which inquiry you chose, and then briefly explain it in your own words: I chose to use inquiry number 25. It concerns a restaurant cook who drops food and calls for it to be served after only picking it up and putting it right on the tray.

(2) Stakeholders: The cook could be fired if someone saw him, the customer getting the floor-food could get ill, the restaurant that employs a cook who is unclean can obtain a bad reputation if anything is wrong with the tainted food.

(3) Are the details given sufficient? Why or why not? The evidence of the cook's unprofessionalism and bad judgement regarding whether or not to serve steaks that fell on the floor is pretty apparent even without much stated detail. Serving food in a restaurant that touched a floor is unhealthy and unappetizing; he made a mistake.

(4) What additional questions does this inquiry raise? Everything the cook did was wrong. No question.

STEP TWO: THE RELEVANT CRITERIA

1. Obligations (aka "duties"): Optional this week
2. Moral Ideals (aka "virtues"): See breakdown of ideals below
3. Consequences (aka "outcomes" or "results"): Optional this week

NOTE: Not ALL of the following ideals will apply! Only consider the main ones that you believe apply, in the inquiry you chose. Don't just pick the easy ones to consider, because you didn't take the time to thoroughly read the chapter and learn what each one of these actually means. I will quiz you when we do group work on Thursday.

* The action taken by the cook had no moral behind it to back it up, however he could have had conflicting ideals which made him choose what he thought was right, but was actually not the most ethical decision.

* Conflicting ideals--I notice in the inquiry that a conflict of honesty and temperance. The cook probably thought about throwing out the steaks, but decided to take control of the situation and not get in trouble for it on the basis that no one saw him. He makes his decision based on his own status at his job and without taking into account the stakeholders, his decision is not morally justified.

STEP THREE: POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION

Alternative #1: The cook could have just made new steaks and taken the heat for messing up like a mature person. He would then at least have the virtue of honesty on his side.

Alternative #2: He could have been low on steaks and if that was the issue he could have asked the customer to re-choose an entree and he could make sure not to mess it up.

Alternative #3: He could have offered a discount for messing up the steaks and made them new entrees.

STEP FOUR: THE MOST ETHICAL ACTION

Examine the action taken or proposed and decide whether it achieves the greater good (the most widespread "respect for persons")...if it does not, choose one that will, from your alternatives. Where the choice of actions is such that no good can be achieved, choose the action that will result in the lesser evil.

The action taken by the cook is undoubtedly wrong and the only way it could be right is if he re-made the food or offered the customers something else. The customers are paying for the meal and for the cook to work there and he is not taking his most important supporters' health seriously at all. If he had just been courageous and owned up to his mistake the outcome would be only uncomfortable for him. Now that he has involved other's health and the entire restaurant's reputation, there is no greater good that he could have been reaching for. He was selfish and unprofessional. Of the twelve virtues (pp.107-109) he could have based his decision on, he chose to not, and risk more than just a few steaks and a repremanding about carefulness around the expensive entree preparation stations.

SELF EVALUATION

1. In your own words, describe something new that you learned from this week’s assigned reading material and guidance. --I learned how doing something wrong can be a product of conflicting virtues and someone can try to be doing good but it won't always be the greatest good that is reached or it won't always be right in one sense, but right in another relevant sense.

2. In your own words, describe in detail some insight you gained, about the material, from one of your classmates' blogs this week. In NS-ethics blog, I read an answer that said that as the parties involved in a situation grows, so does the possiblity that the best answer is not the most moral. It was insightful.

3. Did you post a thoroughly completed post to your blog on time this week? I believe based on my choice of inquiry that i was as thorough as possible and genuinely understand the readings.

4. Did you ALSO print this out, so you can bring it to class and earn total points? Of course.

5. Of 25 points total, my efforts this week deserve: I will bring it to class and i have been very thorough in my work this week and I feel it is represented well. I deserve all possible 25 total points.