Ethical View on Wikileaks
WikiLeaks
Case Study 1
WikiLeaks have taken the spot light and have taken a bold stand again against financial power houses to expose classified information and allow the world to see the truth behind the operations of an American powerhouse bank. The debate is to decide whether or not is right for the financial sector to have a say on which political group can operate, or even withhold services as a tool to manage risk. In the case between WikiLeaks and Bank of America, the director of WikiLeaks Julian Assange has announced his intention to “take down” a major American bank and reveal an “ecosystem of corruption.”He announced information was gathered directly from an executive’s hard drive and would be leaked to the media for the world to see. These actions caused Bank of America to pursue to a full blown internal investigation and search for any trace of evidence to confirm their systems may have been possibly compromised. Recently, Bank of America has joined hands with Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to disallow payment transactions to WikiLeakes. After reading the case, I concluded each organization fell into separate categorical views, and WikiLeaks using Utilitarian reasoning and Bank of America using Deontological theories.
Let’s further explore the two types of views that could be debated. First, the Utilitarianism or known as the Consequentialist theory is an approach to moral decision making that is based off the consequences of an action. For example, we ask ourselves the question? If I do X, what will be the result? Taking in consideration the consequences of the action, we decide if the act was right or wrong. Therefore, a consequentialist suggests that a moral decision is right if it produces more of an increase in happiness overall and wrong if it does not. In consequentialist theories, happiness is the weighted factor in the outcome. The Utilitarianism view in business can be linked to non-profit organizations such as WikiLeakes. Organizations
Case Study 1
WikiLeaks have taken the spot light and have taken a bold stand again against financial power houses to expose classified information and allow the world to see the truth behind the operations of an American powerhouse bank. The debate is to decide whether or not is right for the financial sector to have a say on which political group can operate, or even withhold services as a tool to manage risk. In the case between WikiLeaks and Bank of America, the director of WikiLeaks Julian Assange has announced his intention to “take down” a major American bank and reveal an “ecosystem of corruption.”He announced information was gathered directly from an executive’s hard drive and would be leaked to the media for the world to see. These actions caused Bank of America to pursue to a full blown internal investigation and search for any trace of evidence to confirm their systems may have been possibly compromised. Recently, Bank of America has joined hands with Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to disallow payment transactions to WikiLeakes. After reading the case, I concluded each organization fell into separate categorical views, and WikiLeaks using Utilitarian reasoning and Bank of America using Deontological theories.
Let’s further explore the two types of views that could be debated. First, the Utilitarianism or known as the Consequentialist theory is an approach to moral decision making that is based off the consequences of an action. For example, we ask ourselves the question? If I do X, what will be the result? Taking in consideration the consequences of the action, we decide if the act was right or wrong. Therefore, a consequentialist suggests that a moral decision is right if it produces more of an increase in happiness overall and wrong if it does not. In consequentialist theories, happiness is the weighted factor in the outcome. The Utilitarianism view in business can be linked to non-profit organizations such as WikiLeakes. Organizations