So what should Andrew do? How can he decide which ethical priority is most important, his obligation to CanGo or his desire to respect Gail's confidentiality?

Since ethics is grounded in philosophy and not science, there is no one correct or overriding answer to the question "Is this ethical?" Rather, there are different views of ethics that can be used to evaluate whether a particular decision or behavior is ethical. Let's briefly review the major ones now.

• Utilitarian View: The utilitarian view emphasizes using the greatest good for the greatest number as a criterion for evaluating decisions. Thus, whichever decision benefits the most people would be the decision of choice. From this perspective, an action could be viewed as ethical even if a few people experience negative effects from it.
   
• Rights View: The rights view is based on the premise that individuals have basic rights that must be protected even if there is a cost to the society or to the organization. Protecting an individual's rights is paramount from this perspective.
   
• Justice View: The justice view is grounded in the idea that rules must be imposed equitably to all. The focus is making a decision that is fair to everyone involved.

Andrew could use any of these three perspectives as a starting point for his analysis. They may not lead to a clear resolution, but at least they would provide him with some guidelines.

In a sense, Andrew faces a problem all business managers must deal with on a daily basis: how to balance the rights of different groups of stakeholders. Just as Andrew must decide which is more important, his obligation to CanGo or to Gail, all managers must evaluate their actions in the light of the interests of investors, employees, customers, and society in general. This is no easy task. In fact, the conflicting interests of stakeholders present managers with some of their most difficult ethical dilemmas.

• Employees versus Investors. Firms have an obligation to build investor wealth, but should managers seek to increase profits by laying off large numbers of employees or by devoting fewer resources to on-the-job safety?
   
• Employees versus Society. Firms have an obligation to protect jobs when possible, but should job protection come before environmental protection?
   
• Customers versus Investors. Firms have an obligation to provide safe products to their customers, but how far must a firm go to protect customer safety? When do the costs to the firm outweigh the benefits to customers?
   
• Customers versus Society. Firms have a right to supply customers with the products and services they want, but is this still true when customers' use of the product or service in question is harmful to society as a whole?

There are no easy answers to these questions. Moreover, the examples given above are relatively simple. Managers must often respond to conflicts involving all four groups of stakeholders.

Now that you've reviewed some of the underlying issues of business ethics, let's apply what you've learned to Andrew's problem.

 
 
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