Difficult Decisions

CHAPTER 2The Moral–Ethical–Role Responsibility Triangle

The most challenging decisions test us because they highlight disagreement or incongruence among people that really matter: ourselves, our key stakeholders, and the at-large organizations, societies, and/or cultures within which we operate and exist. Those three populations align to three lenses through which we can consider right and wrong, and those lenses form a triangle: the moral–ethical–role responsibilities triangle (Figure 2.1). Conflict within or among any side(s) of the triangle can be better understood and resolved by relying on the remaining dimensions.

Morals and ethics come into conflict when what we personally believe about what is right and what is wrong is ignored, disputed, or contradicted by what is considered acceptable in our organizations, societies, and cultures. Remember, morals are internally referenced, but they are externally influenced. They don't just come out of nowhere, nor are they universally agreed. Ethics are externally referenced, but internally interpreted. They remind us that we exist in relationship to others.

FIGURE 2.1 The Moral–Ethical–Role Responsibility Triangle

For instance, someone who is vegan might believe that killing and consuming animals is immoral under any circumstance, but he is unlikely to encounter more than a few very limited contexts where that view is held by ...