An ethically defensible decision includes a number of important elements. Most crucial are the ground rules that underlie such a decision. These can include informal ground rules like religious faith, family values, personal experiences, and the personality of the individual. However, more formalized ground rules that are usually steeped in the philosophy of ethics may prove to be much more useful for making ethically defensible decisions. For example, a decision to allow a request for doctor- assisted suicide is

“Ethics is more than a set of guidelines. It is a way of life. It begins with personal conduct and reaches out to the areas of patient care, professional relationships, and how we deal with community resources and services” (Baumgartner)

In recent years, the impact of ethical debacles like Enron and WorldCom in the business world have resulted in renewed discussions of ethical decision making in both the personal and business spheres. Clearly, Enron and WorldCom represented some of the most extreme examples of "ethically challenged" decisions, yet they clearly represent a need for a better understanding of ethics in decision making. Enron was not the only company that used bad ethics when making a decision, the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen used poor judgment when they decided that they would shred evidence of there knowledge Enron’s financial situation. That was a decision that I still try to understand. Accountants take an oath, like attorneys to uphold the law and rules governing the reporting of financials to the federal gov’t. Arthur Anderson firm clearly violated the trust and ethics they were to uphold as accountants. Sometime I feel that money clearly impairs people’s judgment, there respect for rightness an

Some topics in this essay:
Richard Professional, Arthur Anderson, House Ethics, Immanuel Kant's, Enron WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, , Modern English, Categorical Imperative, ground rules, ethically defensible, rightness wrongness, respect rightness wrongness, terms ethical, ethics decision, client professional, ethical decision, respect rightness, course action, enron worldcom,