Case 1
Alternative Funding for Graduate Students: EasyA.com
Kim attends an MBA program in one of Canada’s top business schools where the tuition, textbooks, and fees exceed $35,000 per year. After these costs, Kim also needs to pay for living expenses and other necessities of life. As an undergraduate, to expand her career options, Kim was a double-honours student in law and computer science. A part-time job was never enough to pay the bills during those studies, and so Kim started the MBA program with $25,000 in student loans. Kim is faced with the prospect of almost $80,000 in debt after finishing her MBA!
The MBA program at this prestigious university is a highly competitive program. The top students are often hired immediately after graduation by international firms that pay upward of $100,000 in their first year of employment. After that, there is a quick rise in yearly pay and bonuses.
Other MBA students are often not so fortunate as the top students. Most other graduating students’ career futures involve starting at firms for less than half that amount. These businesses do not have fast-track salary raises or significant performance bonuses. These jobs require that most MBA graduates live a very modest lifestyle in order to balance debt repayments with their mediocre salaries. The lucky ones in this group will either fight with the fresh top students each year for jobs in the top firms or hope that their firm finds sudden success.
Kim, of course, wants to avoid this situation as much as possible. One way of doing this is to minimize her debt. She started a website called EasyA.com; the website is aimed at college students who wish to improve their marks and graduate students wishing to reduce their debts. EasyA.com is similar to a social networking or dating website. Graduate students create profiles that include copies of their transcripts and samples of their essay writing. College students create profiles that state their courses, their assignments, and their due-dates. For a small fee, Kim’s website will suggest matches between graduate and college students. Once matched, the college student asks the graduate “partner” to write an assignment, and the graduate student asks for a small fee. When there is a deal, Kim’s website redirects the partners to a popular payment website to facilitate the transaction. Kim gets 25 per cent of each transaction.
EasyA.com is a hit! Kim set up the website and populated it with other graduate student friends who had younger siblings in college. After a few months, the growing membership far exceeded the original group. Kim is now making $2,000 per month with a website that largely functions on its own. Kim almost immediately quit her part-time job because EasyA.com is always working full time. With her time and money problems solved, Kim dedicates every waking hour to succeeding in her MBA courses. In all likelihood, Kim will be one of the top students of next year’s graduating class.
Case 2
Family Values, Religious Communities, and Marriage
Members of the fundamentalist group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) have made a home for their community in a particular town in British Columbia. Most fundamentalist LDS communities are based in Utah and Colorado. The fundamentalist group broke off from the main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints largely over issues of leadership and “plural marriage.” The non-LDS public often misnames both groups as Mormons. The fundamentalist LDS church teaches that a man may take on more than one wife, and he may have children with all of “his” women. As a result, the RCMP have investigated fundamentalist LDS groups in Canada under the country’s polygamy law.
The fundamentalist LDS church places a strong emphasis on their family values. They insist on plural marriages due to their religious belief that a man with many wives and children receives the highest form of salvation from God. Just as important, perhaps, are the cultural norms and the close community life that are practised by members of this religious group. There is a clear set of social and productive roles, divided according to a strict understanding of gender difference. Female roles are entirely domestic. Male roles are focused on public interactions and material production. Men spend the day outside the home “at work,” while women spend their days inside the home doing “housework.” Many people would recognize fundamentalist LDS homes as “traditional.”
The other arrangements of daily life are less recognizable to people from outside the fundamentalist LDS group. Land is not owned privately. The families live and work on land owned and controlled by the male elders of their group. Often, the land is organized as a ranch with centralized, shared living arrangements. The religious group lives in communities that are networked with each other. If one community has a need that another may fulfill, then the support is given. Such sharing might include tools, vehicles, money, or people. This support often times moves across the Canada-US border. The entire fundamentalist LDS church thus sees itself as one large community.
Women and children are among the resources of the community. Just as the land is controlled by the elders, so too are the marital relationships of the church members. Once a young woman is considered marriageable, it is a church leader who decides to whom she will be assigned as a wife. Elders do not base their decisions about the allocation of marriageable women solely on the needs of the communities. Marriages are the result of placement according to the discernment of God’s will. Once married, that woman is expected to be ready and willing to bear several children to her “placed” husband. Therefore a marriageable woman will not be granted to an eligible young bachelor if the elders decide that God wills her to an older, already-married man who deserves the blessing of more wives and more children. Since the fundamentalist LDS church has communities on both sides of the Canada-US border, young women are sometimes sent for marriage from one state to the other. This is how women are controlled by the elders of the church.
The Canadian government and its law enforcement agencies face a particular challenge with the fundamentalist LDS church. Here is a group that emphasizes the importance of family, sharing, and living together. The same values also lead to polygamy. Their
This has been a strange morning. Your professor’s name appeared in your email inbox, your text message inbox, and on your voice mail. You ignored it all because you were late for this week’s appointment at the professor’s office, but it was getting to be a bit much! Odder still, now the door is closed when you arrive at the office. This never happens. Pinned to the door is a piece of folded paper with your name on it.
“Congratulations! Your professor is sick and you have to replace him tomorrow. See your email for instructions.” A colleague must have left the note. You take out your laptop and log into your email account. Sure enough, the subject line of the email simply says “I know you can do this!”
From an earlier discussion, you know that the class was supposed to be about “how to apply moral theories to a contemporary issue.” In the email, your professor has left you some cursory notes outlining a few issues to work with. The idea is for you to choose one issue and create an “exemplary analysis” for the class. The professor wants you to demonstrate the application of two moral theories to that issue; you are to then show how there is a difference in outcomes, since the framework for each moral theory has different conceptions of what is good, right, and wrong. The professor ends the email by noting how much progress you have made as a scholar of ethics.
Even though it is an email, you can detect the professor’s sense of pride and accomplishment. It’s true: you have been working really hard! You can do this!
Your Task
Starting from a selection of two proposed case studies, you will select one case and analyze it using two moral theories, each from a different category of moral theories. You will create an oral presentation in which you present your analyses. Your presentation must conclude by stating how the two analyses differ from each other. Your oral presentation should be five to seven minutes in length (which amounts to approximately 500 words).
Instructions for Completion
- Review all lessons in Module 3, the related Textbook readings, and your notes. (If you have not yet created your notes, do so now.)
- Read the two cases proposed in the assignment. For each case, take note of the following:
What are the facts of the situation? Answer the “five Ws”: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Who are the agents (“actors”) or groups of agents in this case?
What specific actions does each perform? Does one agent or group do something to someone or some other group?
What is the purpose (objective) of each action done by each agent or group?
When and where did these actions take place?
What are the actual consequences of each action?
Why are these actions ethically controversial? - Select the case you wish to analyze for the purpose of this assignment. Your choice is personal, but the previous step will help you make a more informed decision. You can only decide which case you wish to choose after you have taken the measure of both.
- Choose two moral theories that you will apply to the case. The two theories you choose need to come from two different groups of theories:
Consequential Consequential Virtue ethics
Act-utilitarianism Natural law
Rule-utilitarianism Deontology (Kant)
Note: Religious ethics is not an option for this assignment. - Analyze the selected case by applying each theory. (To guide your analysis, refer to Applying Moral Theories, the document that accompanies this assignment.)
- Compare the outcomes of the two theories.
- Create an outline for your oral presentation. Your presentation should include:
a) Introduction, in which you provide:
A short summary of the case that states which agent you are focusing on.
A description of the action that you will be evaluating.
The names of the two moral theories you will be applying and a very brief description of each theory’s basic principles and guidelines for how each moral theory determines whether an action ought or ought not to be done.
A summary of your conclusion that briefly states the final analysis of each moral theory.
b) Analysis: Describe the analysis under each theory separately.
c) Comparison of outcomes:
State each moral theory and give a one-sentence summary of its final analysis.
If both theories ultimately agree on the permissibly or wrongness of the act, be sure to say so.
Or, if the theories disagree on the permissibly or wrongness of the act, be sure to say so!
Now state the key reasons why the two analyses agree or disagree. What was the key point of agreement or disagreement? Be sure to describe this briefly but accurately. - Review your presentation outline.
- Practice your oral delivery as much as needed. Remember that your great analysis will not shine through if your oral delivery is full of verbal ticks and hesitations or lacks clarity (of either voice or organization of content).
- Make sure to select the best version of your presentation by deleting all the other versions
Sample Solution