Ethical Decision Making in the Real World Goals of Assignment 3: Independently, you will examine how organizations in the real world solve ethical problems related to distributive justice through a Complex (Social) #SystemAnalysis. Your goal is to apply #EthicalConsiderations and #EthicalJudgment to your chosen organization's decisions and activities. Assignment Instructions • Step 1: Select the Organization Select a UAE-based organization focused on a distributive justice issue. This means that your organization should focus on a social justice issue (e.g., access to education, clean water, and health services). You may select a (1) volunteer organization, (2) a non-profit organization, OR (3) a public-service organization in the UAE whose work focuses on some distributive justice topic. Some examples include but are not limited to, are: Thrift for Good A thrift shop that aims to reduce clothing waste and help children, in partnership with Gulf for Good. Step 2: Organization Overview Once you have selected your organization, introduce it and apply #SystemAnalysis to describe the organization and its operations clearly. Identify the distributive justice issue the organization aims to address with a precise application of #Purpose. In relation to its #Purpose, explain how the organization addresses an issue and its decisions and actions. You may consider using media sources, which must be cited, to provide an example of the organization's activities. Step 3: Assessment of Frameworks #EthicalConsiderations Using your classroom materials, identify the #EthicalConsiderations by understanding the actions of your selected organization through at least two ethical frameworks. You must select ethical frameworks covered in this course to understand your selected social justice issue. Identify the ethical dilemma that your organization is concerned with. Interpret the issue through the different ethical frameworks. If your organization is clearly using an ethical framework, clearly state and explain that. Then, compare it to another framework. If it is unclear which framework the organization is using, present the issue through the two or more ethical frameworks you see suitable. As you consider each ethical framework, use your knowledge of #SystemAnalysis to help you identify ethical conflicts, effects, tensions, and implications that may arise when addressing the social justice issue. Step 4: Stance and Defense #EthicalJudgment After considering the different frameworks, decide which ethical framework should be followed by weighing the relevant ethical considerations in light of the situation. Exercise your ethical judgment by defending your considered position by considering and addressing alternatives and counter-arguments and identifying courses of action that best advance that position in the given circumstances. • • • • • • • • • • Step 5: Conclusion In this section, you will briefly summarize the key points made in this assignment. Note that you should also go beyond merely summarizing what you previously said. Reflect on the information that you have acquired and come to new conclusions based on that information. For instance: Does the organization's ability to solve its issue (or not) tell us something else about the complex system (e.g., city, emirate, society) that it is embedded in? Do you think the organization could act in different ways? What would better solve the issue and resolve the ethical conflicts and issues it faces? Are there any barriers or challenges that the organization faces when attempting to address this distributive justice issue, and how can these be overcome? Step 6: APA-Style #Professionalism A reference page formatted in APA style. Ideas and examples summarized or paraphrased from other authors must be appropriately cited. Do not use quotes in this assignment. If you have any questions about APA style and referencing, refer to this resource. Please note that you should adhere to APA Style & Format throughout your paper. This includes but is not limited to one space between sentences, indenting paragraphs, and utilizing leveled headings. Additional Information Make sure you draw your #Audience's attention to your BEST applications of the LOs by adding footnotes to your assignment. In the footnote, provide the hashtag of the LO with two to four sentences explaining your application. Include a word count at the end of your main document (before the reference page). The word count excludes the title page, footnotes, and reference page. Make sure you proofread and check your assignment before submitting it. Check this website for additional support with APA style: https://apastyle.apa.org/ Quotes may not be used in this assignment. All referenced material should be paraphrased in your own words. Assignment Information Length: 800-900 words. Please include the word count (not including footnotes or the reference section) at the beginning of your assignment. Learning Outcomes Added 1. #Professionalism Ensure that your communication follows established guidelines and use a careful editing process. Part of effective communication involves presenting yourself and your work in an appropriate and professional manner. To communicate effectively, consider the norms for presenting yourself to others, including tone, forms of address, and the use of slang or informal speech. Always proofread written work for errors, properly attribute quotations, ideas, data and other sources, and follow conventional practices regarding attribution and formatting for the type of communication you are crafting. Different academic disciplines have different formatting conventions, and it is important to use the expected standards. More broadly, ensure that your approach to communication, whether verbal or written, meets or surpasses the expectations relevant to the context. Example Your new marketing firm has submitted a proposal to a chain of grocery stores that is seeking a fresh approach to its branding. Before you submitted your proposal, you asked several people to proofread it, verified design and font choices were kept consistent throughout, ensured figures and images were readable, formatted all titles and subtitles uniformly, and took great care that every aspect of it was presented according to the highest professional standards for your field. You made sure to properly attribute any information about behavioral economics research to the authors of the respective articles, using proper APA-style in-text citations and adding a bibliography. The grocery chain's CEO later remarked that he was very impressed by the professionalism of your proposal, noting that it reflected well on your attention to detail, honesty, and interest in the project. 2. #SystemAnalysis Analyze and apply decompositions of systems into constituent parts at multiple levels of analysis. Complex systems can be deconstructed in a variety of ways that define both the scope of the system as well as the relevant attributes of its components (in social systems, most commonly, people). Thus, the key part of deconstructing a system is conceptualizing its constituent parts in several ways in order to choose or synthesize the ‘mapping' of the system that is most appropriate for addressing the explanatory challenge. To understand and explain the characteristics and behavior of complex systems, one may conduct this research on different scales, or levels of analysis. Of particular interest are social systems, which can roughly be divided into an individual, or micro level, a group, or meso level, and a system, or macro level. For many of the questions we're interested in, an explanation that is situated on one level of analysis may be insufficient on its own to address the explanatory challenge, and a multilevel analysis is necessary. Example You work at a hospital that's trying to reduce spending. Your manager asks you to make a diagram showing the structure of the organization to identify inefficiencies. You are contemplating how to create this diagram. You first choose to represent the organization by separating it into different departments because the employees within each work together closely, and therefore are expected to share some norms and views about the organizations. While this decomposition reveals the dynamics of interactions between large groups such as the lack of communication between the medical staff in different departments or between the medical and cleaning staff, there are no obvious inefficiencies. You then decide to deconstruct the system by focusing on the roles of individuals and find that each department has its own educational campaigning function and that there is little communication between those working on educational campaigns in different departments. It turns out that there is a large amount of money being spent on educational campaigns overall. This was not obvious when the system was deconstructed by department because education campaigns are funded by each department separately, at relatively low cost. You advise making educational campaigns a central process, consolidating common costs and being able to prioritize what should be budgeted. 3. #Purpose Identify and evaluate underlying goals and the values on which they are based, as well as the guiding principles that determine how an individual or group will try to attain these goals. Projects and initiatives frequently fail when they lack a clear and principled purpose. Identifying the purpose of an individual or group (including, but not limited to, formal organizations) is critical for evaluating their actions—or one's own. To construct an individual's or group's purpose, it is useful to articulate the underlying values that guide and constrain our goals. Moreover, successful outcomes also depend on articulating operating procedures, or guiding principles, consistent with the values and goals. Example The purpose of the non-profit organization that you want to volunteer in is “to create a radically inclusive, just and loving community, mobilized to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization.” As you interrogate the organization and talk to its founders, you learn that one of their core values is the notion that all people deserve to be respected and empowered equally (‘radically inclusive'), as well as a commitment to kind and pleasant interactions ('loving community'). Another core value is an egalitarian conception of social justice, according to which the way to respect and empower everyone equally is to ensure there are social conditions in place that prevent people from succumbing to poverty ("breaking the cycle of poverty and marginalization'). These values underlie their monthly goal of serving at least 60,000 meals to those who may otherwise go hungry. Likewise, their operating procedures reflect these values and goals as they give out free meals daily to anyone who comes to their walk-in center. 4. #EthicalConsiderations Identify ethical problems, framing them in a way that helps to resolve them. Many decisions involve ethical considerations, even if those aren't apparent at first glance. To act ethically, we must first recognize the ethical dimensions of our actions, and that, in turn, may involve identifying relevant ethical values or theories and explaining how they apply to the situation at hand. Ethical values define core commitments that form the foundation of an ethical outlook, which ascribe value to ideas like equality, freedom, life, security, happiness, privacy, and so forth. A commitment to ethical values gives rise to ethical considerations that may include, for example, people's rights, duties, welfare, intentions, or inclinations. Ethical theories account for hierarchies of values and ways to determine what we ought to do, given those values, also known as principles. Such theories include, for example, deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, care ethics, Buddhist ethics, Confucianism, and so on. Ethical theories could be useful to draw on when articulating ethical considerations though it is not necessary to have a complete theory in order to articulate and justify ethical considerations. Example After graduation with a double major in arts and humanities and computer science, you find a great job in a small but exciting game design studio. Your company's most successful game is a puzzle-like competitive murder mystery game called WhoSolvedItFirst that has hundreds of people try to solve a puzzle mystery in real time before others do. Recently the game went viral following a clip of a tiktok influencer and everyone has been working nights to keep up with the demand. The CEO has called a meeting to brainstorm ways to reduce workload while maintaining the success. The main goal is to monetize the game in a sustainable way. In the meeting, you're very impressed with the creative ideas presented. When it's your turn, near the end, you suddenly ask everyone - does it matter that our users are mostly 11-13 years old? Like many other plans, yours relies heavily on many microtransactions (many opportunities for buying in-game features for small amounts of money) and that now makes you uneasy. Your question stirred a lively discussion as some say children users require special protections while others said that microtransactions are manipulative even when users are adults. The CEO says that a core value of the company is to make products that celebrate joy and creativity rather than addiction and frustration, and tasks you to research the ethical considerations of microtransactions. In the memo you're preparing for the CEO, you consider the different issues with microtransactions in general and those that are specific to children users. In general, microtransactions are accused of being manipulative-they ‘trick' people into buying things they wouldn't want or didn't really agree to. You summarize research on the psychology of impulse purchasing and the design tricks of deception called ‘dark patterns.' You conclude that a key value is informed consent and that the company needs to decide what exactly that means.