What must we ask when faced with ethical dilemma?

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Every person comes across an ethical dilemma each day of their waking life. It can be as mundane as taking credit for someone else’s work or as severe as picking up a $20 banknote off the street while knowing who it belonged to. As the saying goes, to err is to be human. Nobody’s perfect, and that is a universal fact. But committing too many unethical acts can call into question your character and constitution.

Hiring managers will ask candidates a common interview question: ‘Have you ever faced an ethical dilemma?’ For the most part, this interview question applies to a professional incident rather than your personal life, although you could certainly delve into an intimate matter.

Indeed, it is undoubtedly a tough interview question to answer, whether out of embarrassment or you cannot think of a professional incident. That said, if you’re unsure how to respond to this question, don’t worry! We’ve put together a step-by-step guide to help you craft an effective response.

The primary reason companies ask this question is to gauge your moral standards and values as an employee and where they align with the firm’s corporate endeavours. Interviewers want to see if you took an ethical stance in your professional career, even if it meant threatening your position.

Some of the best ways to explain when you faced an ethical dilemma include:

• Speaking with a senior level manager or supervisor regarding the matter
• Consulting with the company’s employee handbook
• Using your own best judgement and moral purview when faced with an ethical dilemma

When you faced an ethical dilemma, how did you handle it? This is asked to find out what happened and how you endured. Moreover, interviewers will present this question to determine your instincts, your ability to think on your feet, and what other behaviours you employed to resolve this kind of conflict in the workplace. It could also serve as an opportunity to explain that you made a mistake and that you have learned and developed from either a moral transgression or ethical situation.

Here are a few tips to respond to this query:

• You can go through a list of ethical dilemma(s) that might have made you lose sleep at night
• It would help if you talked about a distant professional incident and not one that recently took place
• If you have not had an ethical situation in the workplace, perhaps think about college or university

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Hiring managers are interested in determining if you considered the company’s position when you came across this ethical dilemma. As a result, employers will hire applicants who have been forthright and decisive when faced with difficult circumstances, confident that these workers will be emphasising the firm’s standards and values. Plus, if you wish to grow with the organisation, the business will know full well that you’re reliable and trustworthy.

Here are a couple of suggestions to answer this part of the interview process:

• You thought about the company’s reputation in the broader sector as a whole
• You looked to your superiors to help you grapple with a tough case
• If you’re responding from the perspective of your college days, you can reply by figuring out what the school’s policies were in your day

Every business – large or small – possesses a mission and maintains core values. Are you someone who shares these principles? Are you a worker who will put these missions and values first in your work? Are you a professional who follows the necessary protocols provided by management? If so, the hiring manager wants to know, and they will ask you about your previous experience with these concepts at past places of employment.

However, even if you did not consider these aspects, there are still many ways to answer this interview question correctly. Here are a few ideas on how to answer this part of the interview:

• You can note that everything you did was by the book
• You sought out advice, even from the higher-ups, when you weren’t sure about something
• You didn’t consider veering away from the company’s mission and values because it’s not in your character

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‘Well, I’m sorry to inform you, but “honesty” is my middle name.’

Yes, this is an example of how you can give an answer to the interviewer. But if you do not wish to be obsequious, you can always home in on why it’s imperative to act with honesty and integrity in both your professional and personal existence. This is music to the ears of the individual conducting the interviews, whether it’s the owner or head of the HR department. The hiring manager wants to find out if you understand why it’s crucial to be honest and maintain an attitude of integrity.

Here are some ways to include this into your response:

• Offer an example of a situation where you place honesty and integrity front and centre
• Go into detail about how you emphasised these traits in any of your professional roles
• Explain how honesty and integrity were always attributes instilled in you since you were a young person

When you’re stumped on how to provide the best possible answer, here’s an example of how to answer the question ‘Have you ever faced an ethical dilemma?’:

In my first job out of college, I was working at a tech startup. One of the employees had been working for the firm from the beginning. He would routinely charge the company for many frivolous things, adding more costs to the entrepreneur who put most of his income in the business. The person had encouraged me to copy his behaviour because the owner would, according to him, ‘not know about it’. I thought this was wrong, not only because it was theft, but also because the owner had taken a chance on a young kid out of university and offered a highly competitive salary. I don’t like finking, but I captured the necessary documentation and showed it to the owner. He really appreciated it in the end after learning the employee stole thousands of dollars.

This answer covers many bases: the dilemma, the company’s best interests, your integrity and how you handled it.

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We all come across ethical dilemmas every day in our lives. Some of them are minuscule, while others can really test your overall character. It’s certainly challenging to be human at times, but this is life, and you will know inside you if something is right or wrong, no matter how intricate or obscure.

Does being honest and ethical come naturally to you, or does it require lots of thinking? Whatever the case may be, companies want to know if candidates have ever grappled with an ethical dilemma that tested their professionalism. If you can provide a great response, you will have had a successful interview.

Join the conversation! Got a question about this interview question or need some advice in general? Let us know in the comments section below!

This article is an update of an earlier version published on 19 June 2014.

Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre,Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer

Moral issues greet us each morning in the newspaper, confront us in the memos on our desks, nag us from our children's soccer fields, and bid us good night on the evening news. We are bombarded daily with questions about the justice of our foreign policy, the morality of medical technologies that can prolong our lives, the rights of the homeless, the fairness of our children's teachers to the diverse students in their classrooms.

Dealing with these moral issues is often perplexing. How, exactly, should we think through an ethical issue? What questions should we ask? What factors should we consider?

The first step in analyzing moral issues is obvious but not always easy: Get the facts. Some moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts. This first step, although obvious, is also among the most important and the most frequently overlooked.

But having the facts is not enough. Facts by themselves only tell us what is; they do not tell us what ought to be. In addition to getting the facts, resolving an ethical issue also requires an appeal to values. Philosophers have developed five different approaches to values to deal with moral issues.

The Utilitarian Approach
Utilitarianism was conceived in the 19th century by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill to help legislators determine which laws were morally best. Both Bentham and Mill suggested that ethical actions are those that provide the greatest balance of good over evil.

To analyze an issue using the utilitarian approach, we first identify the various courses of action available to us. Second, we ask who will be affected by each action and what benefits or harms will be derived from each. And third, we choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits and the least harm. The ethical action is the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number.

The Rights Approach
The second important approach to ethics has its roots in the philosophy of the 18th-century thinker Immanuel Kant and others like him, who focused on the individual's right to choose for herself or himself. According to these philosophers, what makes human beings different from mere things is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives, and they have a fundamental moral right to have these choices respected. People are not objects to be manipulated; it is a violation of human dignity to use people in ways they do not freely choose.

Of course, many different, but related, rights exist besides this basic one. These other rights (an incomplete list below) can be thought of as different aspects of the basic right to be treated as we choose.

• The right to the truth: We have a right to be told the truth and to be informed about matters that significantly affect our choices.

• The right of privacy: We have the right to do, believe, and say whatever we choose in our personal lives so long as we do not violate the rights of others.

• The right not to be injured: We have the right not to be harmed or injured unless we freely and knowingly do something to deserve punishment or we freely and knowingly choose to risk such injuries.

• The right to what is agreed: We have a right to what has been promised by those with whom we have freely entered into a contract or agreement.

In deciding whether an action is moral or immoral using this second approach, then, we must ask, Does the action respect the moral rights of everyone? Actions are wrong to the extent that they violate the rights of individuals; the more serious the violation, the more wrongful the action.

The Fairness or Justice Approach
The fairness or justice approach to ethics has its roots in the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said that "equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally." The basic moral question in this approach is: How fair is an action? Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination?

Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason for singling them out; discrimination imposes burdens on people who are no different from those on whom burdens are not imposed. Both favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.

The Common-Good Approach
This approach to ethics assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is inextricably linked to the good of the community. Community members are bound by the pursuit of common values and goals.

The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000 years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, contemporary ethicist John Rawls defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage."

In this approach, we focus on ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions, and environments on which we depend are beneficial to all. Examples of goods common to all include affordable health care, effective public safety, peace among nations, a just legal system, and an unpolluted environment.

Appeals to the common good urge us to view ourselves as members of the same community, reflecting on broad questions concerning the kind of society we want to become and how we are to achieve that society. While respecting and valuing the freedom of individuals to pursue their own goals, the common-good approach challenges us also to recognize and further those goals we share in common.

The Virtue Approach
The virtue approach to ethics assumes that there are certain ideals toward which we should strive, which provide for the full development of our humanity. These ideals are discovered through thoughtful reflection on what kind of people we have the potential to become.

Virtues are attitudes or character traits that enable us to be and to act in ways that develop our highest potential. They enable us to pursue the ideals we have adopted. Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all examples of virtues.

Virtues are like habits; that is, once acquired, they become characteristic of a person. Moreover, a person who has developed virtues will be naturally disposed to act in ways consistent with moral principles. The virtuous person is the ethical person.

In dealing with an ethical problem using the virtue approach, we might ask, What kind of person should I be? What will promote the development of character within myself and my community?

Ethical Problem Solving
These five approaches suggest that once we have ascertained the facts, we should ask ourselves five questions when trying to resolve a moral issue:

• What benefits and what harms will each course of action produce, and which alternative will lead to the best overall consequences?

• What moral rights do the affected parties have, and which course of action best respects those rights?

• Which course of action treats everyone the same, except where there is a morally justifiable reason not to, and does not show favoritism or discrimination?

• Which course of action advances the common good?

• Which course of action develops moral virtues?

This method, of course, does not provide an automatic solution to moral problems. It is not meant to. The method is merely meant to help identify most of the important ethical considerations. In the end, we must deliberate on moral issues for ourselves, keeping a careful eye on both the facts and on the ethical considerations involved.

This article updates several previous pieces from Issues in Ethics by Manuel Velasquez - Dirksen Professor of Business Ethics at Santa Clara University and former Center director - and Claire Andre, associate Center director. "Thinking Ethically" is based on a framework developed by the authors in collaboration with Center Director Thomas Shanks, S.J., Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good Michael J. Meyer, and others. The framework is used as the basis for many programs and presentations at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.