What Would You Do?

BY ALAN SARIEDDINE

March 1, 2021

The case presented to me is that my colleagues and I have been reviewing applications for a regional manager to represent our company. Our committee decides on a candidate by the name of John Deer. John is often described as a “genius”, and it can be seen that he performed every task in his previous company with excellence. It was shown on file that John was a quiet, polite man who was not the social type as he rarely joined his coworkers at social functions. A brief detail added was that when John did attend functions, he never brought his wife, which at first seemed like an unnecessary addition. However, I received a call from his wife who sounded shaky, and she said that her husband had domestically abused her because he was tensed about not knowing if he was chosen for the regional manager position. I was also told that John has had a history of domestic abuse over the years. His wife ended the call by begging me to give John the job as it might relieve his tensions and help their family life at home. After confirming this story with the shelter his wife is staying at, I am now left with an ethical decision over the future of John Deer at my company.

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that judges an action based on its consequences, which must promote pleasure over pain. According to Utilitarianism an action is considered just if its consequences increase the overall happiness of the majority. An action is considered wrong if it produces more unhappiness or pain to the majority. The consequences must be considered not only for yourself, but for the larger majority of people who will receive pleasure from the outcome of the action. Although this theory can justify some actions that are inhumane, it is focused on the outcome rather than the motive of the action.

Applying the Utilitarian approach to this case you must consider how many people will be affected by your decision of still hiring John Deer or looking for another option due to the information presented to you by his wife. The first option is being ethical to his wife and listening to her request of hiring her husband. As an outcome, the people who are significantly affected by this decision would be John’s family, the employers of your company, and yourself. There are both short term and long-term consequences to this option. The short-term consequences would be bringing pleasure to John’s family knowing that they do not have to worry about John being angry when they return home and keeping your colleagues happy that they made a good selection at the cost of your pain. The long-term consequence would be knowing that John Deer has a history of domestic abuse due to work related anger, which could create an unsafe work environment for your colleagues if John were to hit one of your employers out of frustration. This problem could root back to the selection committee if it goes public that it was known that John had a history of being an abuser. This consequence would decrease the overall happiness in the long run because the company will have to deal with the repercussions of John’s action, and he might go back home and abuse his wife again. The other option would be being ethical to the company by telling your colleagues what you were told and looking for another candidate. The short-term consequences of this action would be that John will probably go back home displeased and hit his wife once again, and my colleagues and I would have to go through the inconvenience of rushing to find another good selection one hour before the announcement which would cause unhappiness. The long-term consequences of this option, however, would benefit the company because you can avoid having to worry about having a violent employee and avoid causing problems for the company as a whole. With this information in mind, the utilitarian verdict would say that the ethical thing to do is not hire John Deer because the unhappiness caused in the short time after making the decision does not outweigh the overall happiness of the majority in the long run.

In conclusion, I agree with the Utilitarian verdict in this case because the ethical thing to do would be to avoid hiring John Deer. Knowing that John has a personality flaw, could create a hostile environment in the workplace and if that were to occur it would root back to me because I made the selection. It would be different if I was unaware of John’s history but knowing this information the ethical decision is hiring another candidate.