Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:
CASE 5 Hiring Between an African-American and a Caucasian Woman
Denise, 22, an African-American woman, and Bonnie, 23, a Caucasian woman, are the two top applicants for a computer technician job in a major data-processing center. The center has about 10 percent minority employees and about 30 percent female employees. Both women seem to be equally well qualified except that Bonnie is both prettier and more outgoing than Denise. This particular job doesn’t require the person who fills it to meet the public very much, but it takes place in a large office in which almost everyone is Caucasian and in which relations among employees are particularly important because of the constant pressures of the job. If you were the personnel manager, whom would you pick for the job? Why? What should this person’s criteria for employee selection be, and in what order of importance should these criteria be placed? Why? To what extent should the personnel manager be concerned about affirmative action or reverse discrimination in this situation?
The special challenge in this assignment is play acting. That is, you must analyze and propose a solution for your chosen case as if you were a nonconsequentialist (rational) ethicist or a virtue ethicist.
To begin your case analysis:
1. Name the case chosen and in narrative format, outline the main facts of the case.
2. Discuss the context, history, and general background to this sort of case. Here extra research is encouraged. Raise issues that any ethical consultant should be aware of when dealing with this "type" of case.
3. Repeat the specific question(s) you were given from the text about the case. You may add extra questions of your own here.
4. Make your proposed solutions to each answer as one that an ethical consultant employing your assigned ethical theory would propose. Show how that solution would be better than any other possible solution. (Remember that this is play acting, and your own personal ethical opinion need not be stated. What is important is demonstrating how your answers are consistent with the chosen ethical theory.)
5. End by giving recommendations, consistent to your given ethical theory, on how each person associated with this case should act individually going forward. Then comment, consistent to your given ethical theory, on the "larger implications" of your recommendations for cases of this type.
