In this course, you have looked at classical ethical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. You have also examined
different perspectives on ethical issues introduced by relativism, ethical egoism, and emotivism. For this paper, you will apply these
theories and perspectives to a current issue, selected from the list of issues below.
Choose one of the ethical issues from the list to research and write about. It is recommended that you choose a topic you are familiar
with or that you have thought about previously, if possible. For example, you might choose an issue that either worries you or enrages
you; you might choose one that you have worked on; or you might choose one that relates to recent events in your community.
Possible Issues
Corporate executive compensation
Corporate contributions to political campaigns
Affirmative action
The media and its responsibilities
Domestic surveillance
Whistle blowing in government or in a business
Religion in the workplace
Pornography
Consumer tracking
Ethical problems of gambling
Progressive taxation rates
Immigration
Women’s equality
In your paper, you will apply the ethical theories and perspectives to the issue that you select. You do not have to use all six, but
you should apply at least two ethical theories and at least one ethical perspective in your paper. Make sure that you write primarily
on ethical topics and concepts; do not get distracted by doing analyses that apply political, economic, religious, or legal
perspectives. Describe, compare, and apply the ethical theories and perspectives to the topics. Explain your analysis of the issue
using these theories and perspectives. What are the ethical issues? Where there breaches of ethical behavior? How could each theory
help people think about what constitutes virtuous or ethical behavior?
To understand more about preparing this assignment, please review the SOC120 Library Research Tutorial.
Your draft must include at least three pages of text plus a title page and a references page. Your draft should include a clear thesis
statement that states what you plan to argue. Also include a list of the sources you intend to use. You can also use the Sociology
Research Guide located in the Ashford University Library. Format your rough draft according to APA style and properly cite and
reference all your sources according to APA format. If you would like to refer to APA samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing
Center, located within the Learning Resources tab in the left navigation bar of your online course.
EXTRA READING MATERIAL:
Statuses, Roles and Social Structures
What are the components that make up a society? This may seem like a simple question, but it actually is quite complex, as society is
enormously complicated. An initial response might be that society is composed of individuals. After all, it is people that make up
society, right? Certainly, society is a concept that generally, for our purposes, refers to humans (although it can be used for other
species as well), and many humans together form a society. But, interestingly, sociologists could come up with other responses that
show that society is not really made up of the individuals that comprise it; or, perhaps more accurately, it is not the individuals
alone that make up society, as society is much more than just the sum of all the individuals.
A more sociological approach is to look at the basic components of society as being statutes and roles, rather than individuals. A
status is a social construct―it is an idea or perception that has been created through people’s social and cultural practices and
beliefs. And to define these terms, a status is a position that a person occupies in society, and the role is what the person does in
that status, or the expectations that others have for someone in that status. So, for example, in a classroom one status is teacher,
and some of the expectations that are attached to the status of being a teacher are leading the class, offering instruction, giving
assignments, helping students who are struggling and the like. All of these expectations form the role of teacher; because others have,
through experience, formed expectations of what teachers should do, teachers see all of these as their job description. Another status
in a classroom is a student. What are some of the roles attached to the status of student?
So, while we might think of a classroom as consisting of individuals, what we really have are individuals who are occupying specific
statuses and playing specific roles. Note that these statuses and roles consist of roughly the same qualities irrespective of any
specific individual; the expectations for a teacher are roughly the same whether it is Mr. Gomez or Ms. Yamamoto who is the specific
teacher in the classroom. Each has to do many of the same things. Of course, it is fair to say that the expectations are roughly the
same because every individual who acts as a teacher will have her own particular way of doing the job, but there are general
characteristics of what a teacher is, and what others (students, administrators, parents, others in the community) expect of a teacher.
If any teacher deviates too far from these norms, then those around them will start to question and may even punish this deviant
behavior, to get them to act more in line with expectations.
So we can think of statuses and roles as social structures, as the stable and constant elements that make up social institutions and
hierarchies, and that endure independent of the specific individuals who may occupy these statuses at any given time (Merton, 1938). It
is because we have these statuses and roles that we can effectively carry out education; individuals who have some experience with
education can quickly move into these statuses and move through an educational system by reproducing the statuses at each level. No one
has to relearn the statuses constantly.
social structure
Example of a Social Structure in Egypt
during the time of King Tut.
Source: http://kateygibb.edublogs.org/
What are some other statuses in society? Within families we see mother, son, cousin, grandfather, and many others. Within government we
see senator, mayor, voter, and the worker at your local Department of Motor Vehicles, among many others. In the realm of religion, we
have rabbi, pope, imam, minister, parishioner, organist, and others. Within a business, statuses might be vice president, accountant,
sales representative, or mail room clerk. In addition to defining what others expect, statuses also carry a particular weight both in
the institution and society—people form judgments based on how they perceive the importance of the status. Thus, statuses also separate
people out into hierarchies. Institutions and social hierarchies are also examples of social structures.
Social Structures and Morality
In addition to judgments about the social weight of different statuses, people form judgments about the social value of what other
people do. Values shape our perceptions of what is right or wrong, good or bad, positive or negative. As we have seen, people typically
make moral or value judgments based on what is best for social functioning—generally speaking, something is viewed as moral if it
advances the collective good, and immoral if it interrupts social functioning (Durkheim, 1925/1973). Morals are embedded in the social
statuses and roles (expectations) that make up society, and like other social features, they create and shape the identities of
individuals in that society. Morals do not dictate behavior; rather, they provide guidelines for individuals to make ethical choices
and to behave in particular ways, both right and wrong.
Rights and Responsibilities
Social structures provide the means to create and enforce the rights and responsibilities that individuals enjoy in social settings.
Morality shapes how we perceive these rights and responsibilities. Those who exercise their rights within the moral codes of society—
generally, those who adhere to the responsibilities that attach to any right—are viewed as more worthy of those rights. Their actions
are moral because they advance social functioning, or the common good. Likewise, those whose actions disrupt social functioning as it
is commonly conceived are not exercising their responsibilities and are punished by society. Punishment may take various forms—it may
be directed at bringing the deviant back into society (e.g. through education or rehabilitation), it may be directed at pushing the
deviant out of society (e.g. through the death penalty or life in prison), or it may aim somewhere in between, for example by allowing
a deviant to interact in society but under specified conditions. To view a list of rights and responsibilities of American citizens as
defined by the American government, see this page from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services:
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.749cabd81f5ffc8fba713d10526e0aa0/?
vgnextoid=39d2df6bdd42a210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=39d2df6bdd42a210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
Note that the common good is not always conceived of as a collective good, per se, in contrast to the individual good. Some social
theory constructs individual rights and responsibilities as the foundation of social functioning. For example, some sociologists study
a particular perspective called rational choice theory, which proposes that society functions best when individuals are given the
liberty to make choices that are in their own self-interest (Collins, 1994). (This is similar to the psychological egoist perspective).
When individuals act in their own interest (or “maximize their utility,” in economic terms), they can more easily accumulate wealth,
and this has a social value—if individuals are not allowed to act in their own interest, no one would have the individual motive to
take the risks and make the investments of time and money to generate that wealth, and the wealth would not be available to society.
Once the wealth exists, it goes to the social good in many ways—in taxes paid to government, in philanthropy by the one who created it,
in jobs and wages to those the owner hires to create more wealth, in capital that is available for others to invest, and in benefits to
the members of the owner’s own family, including descendants. All of these promote a particular vision of the social good, one that is
commonly held in the United States and other Western countries. For more information on rational choice theory, see this page from Iowa
State University:
http://www.soc.iastate.edu/Sapp/soc401rationalchoice.pdf.
Our perceptions about ethics in the workplace are shaped by our ideas of rights and responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities can
be shaped by various theories, but rational choice theory is one approach that is influential in American workplaces. In what ways does
a rational choice approach shape what is perceived as ethical in the case studies discussed in Chapter 4?
References:
Collins, R. (1994). Four sociological traditions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, E. (1925/1973). Moral education: A study in the theory and application of the sociology of education. New York: The Free
Press.
Merton, R. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3(5), 672–682.