Current Ethical Issues in Business Essay

In the brainwashed society of Oceania in 1984, by George Orwell, led by a totalitarian government in the name of a leader known as Big Brother, citizens are placed under constant surveillance from the government, preventing them from having individuality and freedom of thought. Although written in a fictional setting, the book strikes analogous similarities to the United States in today’s world. Due to a growth in surveillance, personal information and privacy are being intervened, however, not violated. While technological advances are increasing and crimes such as hacking and terrorism are becoming more prominent in society, government surveillance is becoming largely needed to ensure the protection

Out of the increased abuse of surveillance emerges human fear, as an overdose of information leads to a paranoid society, whose skeptic lens distrusts everything and attempts to micromanage all portals of information, and a suppressed society, whose fear of discovery inhibits its expression. In Winston’s world of telescreens and thought police, the idea of privacy is nonexistent. The looming presence of Big Brother’s face “[is] as though some huge

Ethics and moral obligations are issues we all encounter at one time or another. In the professional setting, all people should act in a manner that would uphold the good of society. To be ethical, one has to determine their obligations, moral ideas, and moral philosophy (Boatright, p. 19, 2009). The case analysis involving Jacob Franklin was a perfect example of how an individual can face the dilemma of doing what is right or wrong. Businesses have their own code of ethics, and the employees within the business have to determine whether or not they will follow the company’s code of conduct. I will discuss several ethical issues in the case analysis including; failure to report information, remaining silent regarding faulty equipment,

To further validate my point, George Orwell wrote a book called 1984, which presents the reader with the concept of “Big Brother”. The book introduces “Big Brother” as a symbol of what government surveillance is like. Orwell, expresses his views on privacy by creating the concept of Big Brother which takes government surveillance to another level; in a negative sense. In the book, Big Brother is able to

From a recent increase in crime rates surveillance in public entities have increased. Many individuals argue that public surveillance is an invasion of privacy and feel uncomfortable with their every move being watched. Others believe without public surveillance, crime rates would be increased. In a country of over 300 million people surveillance is widely used to identify criminals. Since public surveillance reduces crime by 20 percent and protects over 300 million lives, it is not an abuse of power; in fact it balances the use of power.

Orwell’s prediction of digital surveillance is one of the biggest issues that is discussed today as the increased amount of surveillance in countries, which creates a lack of privacy for the citizens. One scholar of George Orwell says, “Orwell say way ahead of his time that surveillance was a constant threat. When you’ve lost your privacy to a government that says it’s only thinking of your safety, you’ve lost something previous” (qtd. in Gelt 2). The novel starts out with the very well known quote of “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” (2). The concept of Big Brother is that the government is constantly watching over the people to make sure there is no attack on the Party and/or the Party’s interests. Big Brother uses resources such as surveillance helicopters (13) to peer into the rooms of the apartments

Big Brother is watching (Orwell). The truth is that anyone reading this paper from the internet has the right to know that someone thousands of miles away could very well be watching (Orwell). On top of this shocking fact, a victim would never even know they were being watched. George Orwell knew what he was talking about when he wrote of a society in which all things are monitored by the government and an individual's right to privacy is breached for the sake of peace and safety. Some might even say America is such a society today. The citizens in the USA believe that their government is doing all in its power to protect them, but when do national security measures such as spying and monitoring become

Before the technological age, there were thousands of years in which the only way to record an image was to painstakingly spend countless hours painting it onto a canvas. Now, we have the ability to record video, in amazingly high definition, with a camera lense that is remarkably small. With the boom that technology has had, we have not been able to keep up with the laws that surround it. One such controversy, is the use of mass surveillance. We have been unable to decide if it is ethical to breach everyone's right to privacy in the name of supposedly preventing crime. After a careful analysis of the benefits and liabilities that mass surveillance brings, it was found that mass surveillance is a breach of people’s right to privacy, and is impractical in preventing crime.

A phrase very often seen throughout the book is ‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING’. Through the repetition of the statement, the audience is shown its importance and relevance in the civilization that Winston lives in. Posters are found just about everywhere in Oceania bearing this slogan. Big Brother’s reach extends through the thought police, the control over the disappearance of certain citizens, Telescreens, and the different ministries present in their society. Big Brother is the most prominent influence in this novel, controlling just about everything. This overseeing force of government sounds strikingly familiar to the government of today’s world. Everyday there are new inventions surfacing that sacrifice privacy in exchange for a safer environment. Similar to the Telescreens used by the thought police to watch citizens, facial recognition hardware is used in stores, airports, and by police worldwide to

George Orwell wrote 1984, a novel suggested by the year 1984, the world could fall un-der the rule of a totalitarian regime that would monitor its’ citizens every move. Our “surveil-lance Society” threatens civil liberties in a way that mirrors Orwell’s fears. The recent profusion of surveillance techniques constitutes a threat to civil liberties.

Under the rule of Big Brother, it is no secret that “Big Brother is watching you” (Orwell

Therefore, Market West accepted the corporation stock as partial debt. Hooper and Yoder agreed to add Brian Bradley who worked for Market West as the third director. Hooper colluded with Bradley and violated a fiduciary duty to Yoder by issuing 95 shares of stock to himself, 5 shares to Bradley, and none to Yoder. Furthermore, Hooper got paid $141,000 salary from the business without Yoder knowing. More importantly, Hooper and Bradly voted to force Yoder to leave the corporation. After Yoder found out that Hooper broke their agreement, violated Yoder’s rights and duties, acted dishonestly, and made unethical decisions, Yoder sued Hooper and Beautiful Daydreams in the District Court. Under the common law, with these facts, the court supported Yoder and ordered Hooper to give back one-half of the salary plus one-half of the shares of stock to Yoder.

To take away a man’s right to privacy is to take away his right to live. In the totalitarian government of the novel 1984 by George Orwell and the article “Personal privacy up for grabs” by C. Mitchell Shaw, there lies a sense of knowledge that constant watch does not signify safety or true freedom. Rather, both written pieces focus on the belief that a man without the freedom to act in private without observation is not a man at all--his existence is erased in the process. By analyzing the article “Personal privacy up for grabs” and the novel 1984 we can further grasp the importance and impact of the loss of privacy in society. The intimacies and secrets of life that we ourselves should have the right to determine whom to

2. Ethical Issues in Business. It seems that every day in the news we are hearing of new company that has acted at least unethically and possibly illegally in the operation and financial reporting of their company's business dealings. There are many ethical issues in business. One major issue that we see is over and under reporting net income. Companies like to show that every quarter the net income of the business has an increase or profit. In order to show this they adopt unethical or illegal means in the operation and financial reporting. One such method is the indiscriminate use of stock options for employees that enable companies to take employment costs off balance sheet and inflate earnings. With the recent ethical issues we have

Business ethics is a type of professional ethics or applied ethics which examines moral problems and ethical principles that come up in a corporate environment. It is applied to every aspect of conducting business. According to Milton Friedman, a company has the responsibility to generate as much revenue as it can while still conforming to the basic rules that society has set. These rules include the ones embodied in customs as well as in law. Similarly, Peter Drucker stated that the standards set for personal ethics should cover all situations in business. There are various perspectives of looking at ethics. This includes deontological theory, teleological theory and natural law theory.