Hey, can someone please write an ethical capstone paper? Instructions and examples are attached.
IDIS302 Ethical Issues in Business and Society
Summer 2022
Example 1
Final Capstone Assignment
My Personal Ethics
After reflecting on the many ethical frameworks and philosophies we explored during the course, I believe that my personal code of ethics is a hybrid of Aristotelian virtue ethics and deontology (informed by our reading of Kant). When I am faced with an ethical decision, I consider my response based on several factors:
What is the balanced response to take in this situation? This is reminiscent of Aristotle’s virtue ethics, which promotes a “mean” that is neither deficient nor excessive. For example, I recently was faced with a decision of whether to attend a friend’s wedding in Ridgedale, Missouri. Travelling there would be expensive and time-consuming, and my wife could not attend because she’s in the third trimester of her pregnancy. I concluded that attending the wedding would be overly deferential, as it would strain our family’s finances and cause stress to my wife. In this case, my attendance would have been deficient of consideration to my wife, and perhaps excessive in my selfish desire to see my friend’s wedding. Coming to this conclusion also involved an external deontological consideration…
How would I feel if someone did this to me? If I were in my friend’s shoes, how would I feel about someone declining my wedding? I gave this some thought and concluded that my decision to stay home was acceptable. If I were in his shoes, I would understand someone deciding to stay home with his pregnant wife rather than travel across the country to be in attendance. This is very similar to Kant’s deontology in that it also involves asking…
Would I be okay with everyone doing this? Would I be okay if, as a rule, people always declined a cross-country wedding invitation when their spouses were seven months pregnant? Yes, I would.
If I were to codify my thought process into a personal code of ethics, it would be as follows:
I must always act in a thoughtful manner while being true to myself and maintaining integrity and empathy in my interactions with others.
A Professional Code of Ethics
The CFA Institute offers professional designations for individuals in the investment management industry. As a candidate for the Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA”) designation, though not yet a CFA charterholder (which requires passing a series of rigorous exams over a 3+ year period), I have agreed to adhere to its Code of Ethics.
The strengths of the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics include its emphasis on promoting public trust through fiduciary standards and competency of adherents. The viability of the investment management profession hinges on public trust. If the public does not trust investment managers to act in its best interests (act as fiduciaries) then the profession will cease to exist. Further, society at large would suffer because the capital markets would not be able to allocate financial resources to innovation for the public good. I believe the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics appropriately emphasizes competency, fiduciary standards, and integrity to the benefit of building public trust.
One issue I have with the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics is its use of the word “ethical.” To me, this is like using a word to define itself. For example, my telling you that ethical is defined as “characterized by ethics” does not help you understand what ethical truly means or how to behave ethically. Overall, I am pleased with the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics, and this is a minor criticism because they go on to provide more practical ways to behave ethically.
Case Study
https://www.cfainstitute.org/-/media/documents/ethics-in-practice/ethics-in-practice-casebook-2nd-edition-web.pdf
Overall, I believe Soto’s actions are consistent with my personal code of ethics though lacking in some areas. Soto is thoughtful in his approach to evaluating hedge funds for his clients, but he falls short by not conducting background checks on the managers and key personnel and not verifying the relationships between the funds and their service providers. Despite these shortcomings, his actions are still thoughtful. Likewise, Soto’s actions are also consistent with the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics in that he demonstrated competence, diligence, and reasonable care.
Analyzing this case study revealed that both my personal code of ethics and the CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics are imperfect and open to interpretation. Furthermore, both codes of ethics are vague and subjective. This makes sense because it is impossible to write a code of ethics that covers every possible scenario. Instead, we both likely wrote codes of ethics that used idealistic words like “thoughtful,” “diligence,” and “reasonable care,” which are open to interpretation.
There is one notable way in which my personal code of ethics conflicts with that of the CFA Institute. The CFA Institute asks members and candidates to “strive to maintain and improve the competence of other investment professionals.” I imagine this mandate exists to encourage supervisors or bosses to educate their subordinates. But as they say, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” CFA Institute is asking individuals to take responsibility for others, which is difficult to achieve (given the expression I previously shared). My personal code of ethics, on the other hand, applies to me and does not ask that I influence the decisions of others. Again, this reflects the idealistic nature of codes of ethics. In a perfect world, supervisors could ensure the competence of their subordinates, but reality is much more nuanced. You can share knowledge and resources with someone, but it is difficult to ensure that they are gaining competence.
Appendix
“Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct
The benchmark for professional conduct for investment professionals around the globe. As a CFA Institute member, CFA Program candidate, or CIPM Program candidate, you are required to follow the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct (Code and Standards).”
https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/ethics-standards/ethics/code-of-ethics-standards-of-conduct-guidance
https://www.cfainstitute.org/-/media/documents/code/code-ethics-standards/code-of-ethics-standards-professional-conduct.pdf
