Ethical decision-making is essential in understanding and demonstrating values in educational institutions. Philosophical, social and moral principles and values accentuate ethical decision-making and shape the foundation for understanding the relationship between an individual's values and decisions made in educational institutions. Administrating what an individual knows is right is not always straightforward, and determining what is right is often difficult (Beckner, 2004).
An exact collection of ethical principles and moral concepts in decision-making does not exist. An understanding of ideas, values, or concepts should guide one's decision-making and demonstrate what an individual believes to be the best for students and other stakeholders in an educational institution. Individuals should prepare to utilize logical and applicable methods in decision-making, predominantly in situations where an obvious right-and-wrong answer does not exist (Beckner, 2004). The following treatise will identify, compare, and contrast three approaches to making ethical decisions within an educational institution: consequentialism, mixed-consequentialism, and deontologism. These three approaches to ethical decision-making, present a method for differentiating between right and wrong actions (Odell, 2001).
Consequentialism
In consideration of the consequential approach, individuals should do whatever brings about the best results in a situation. This idea relates to common sense in the logic thinking that if individuals know the results of a specific action will be better than the results of another, then the individual should choose the action which will have the best outcome (Uglietta, 2001). In consequentialism theory, an individual ought to maintain the ability to foresee the consequences of an action. To a consequentialist, the decision that generates the most benefit to the most individuals