Students Navigate Workplace Ethical Dilemmas
By Lily Fay
We have all heard of the moral dilemma known as the trolley problem, where a runaway trolley is headed towards five people on the tracks and you have the choice to pull a lever making it divert to another track, but that causes the trolley to head towards a single person instead.
The trolley dilemma is a psychological riddle made to test the solver’s intuition about what actions are morally right, specifically when faced with a choice between two negative outcomes.
If you don’t know the trolley problem, you might be more familiar with the lifeboat dilemma.
Imagine a lifeboat with a limited capacity, surrounded by many people in the water. The problem arises when there are more people that need saving than the lifeboat can hold. The essential question is; what ethical principles and variables surrounding the conflict decide who is saved and who must be left behind?
Both examples are extremely drastic and, luckily, not very realistic. However, what if we were to look at a simpler situation?
You work at a cosmetic and hair product company in the laboratory department, and you’re loving your job so far. You make ample money and feel comfortable with your workload. However, in their ads and signs and product labels, the company claims not to test on animals. They insist that they are an animal-free, vegan brand.
You know first-hand by working in the chemical product lines that your company does tests on animals, and you’ve noticed they often do it in ways that are cruel and cause the animals psychological distress and suffering.
You know that companies who falsely claim to be cruelty-free can face public backlash, reputational damage and potential lawsuits, so you have a decision to make. Do you continue with your work and overlook the fact that your company is lying to the public? Or do you make a verbal complaint and risk your job?
As this ethical dilemma is up to its readers, the opinion for what you would do is all up to you. However, here is insight from some SU students that you should consider before taking your stance.
The first SU student response comes from Kiara Koeller, an English secondary education major with a political science and history dual minor. Initially, she had mixed feelings about the ethical dilemma but ultimately chose not to avoid sitting in silence.
Koeller said, “I feel like I would have to make the complaint. It wouldn’t sit right with me, even if I was making good money and I do like my job.”
Koeller also mentioned if she was in the shoes of a lab worker, “I would not want to see it, and if I’m working in the laboratory department, I feel like they would make me do that too, and there’s no way I would.”
Another stance from a student comes from Ben Morcom, an accounting major here at SU. He provided a very clear-cut answer by stating, “in this situation I would 100% tell the people about the problems going on in my work. The reason I have to tell them is because I couldn’t live with the guilt of simply knowing that they’re testing on animals. If they’re testing on animals, and I am continuing to work there then I am part of the problem.”
Morcom has a definitive attitude about what he would do in this situation, and what alternative plans he would have by stepping forward and expressing his discomfort to his employers.
“If I give up my job which I love, there’s always some other job I can find,” said Morcom.
Lastly, we gain insight from a student who aspires to study in Susquehanna’s business program, Ryan Brezlin. He gave a fitting answer for how he views this ethical dilemma as a toss-up scenario.
“They’re lying about it, but I like the job,” Brezlin said, “No, I think I’d have to come out and say something, that’s kind of messed up especially since they’re saying animal-free and vegan brand.”
By Brezlin’s response, readers see that he weighs the pros and the cons before deciding to be the bigger person and alerts the employers of their wrongdoing.
However, Brezlin did have a bit of hesitation in saying, “and it’s probably unlikely I keep my job, but I guess I’d have to say something.”
So, what would you do?
Would you stay silent and do your work as usual or confess to your management that what they’re doing is wrong? Does the company have the right to confidentiality, or should the opportunity of public fairness shine through by stepping forward and giving the company a chance to come clean before any consequences set in?