Ethics Week 2

Shanae Langley

Ethics Week 2

Group B

Scenario 1:

I feel that the office worker was entitled to take his earned time off. I also feel like he was entitled to take additional time off without pay if he so chooses within justifiable reasons. For example, if he ran out of sick days and became sick thereafter and has to take a day without pay. I do not feel that he was entitled to take these days if he just simply “did not feel like coming to work that day”. In my opinion, that is wrong. He left the office staff short a worker and in turn paperwork piled up and the rest of the office staff had to pull their weight plus his. This is a case of “ought/should be versus what is”. In a perfect world, people would think about how their actions affect the outcome of the others around them.

Augustine states that on one side “the life of reason leads to temporal well-being”. Augustine would have justified the office worker’s action of taking his earned time off as well as additional time off if it was within reason. If the office worker had justifiable reasons to take that much time off then his well-being at time (temporal) would have been justified and therefore excused or understood by the rest of the office staff.

Aquinas states that Natural Law or the Divine Law as written in the heart of man, can be discovered by reason and cultivated by conscience. Aquinas would have solved this problem by stating that the office worker must have had reason and conscience in order to feel that he was entitled his vacation and sick days as well as additional time off without pay.

In the first scenario, Augustine and Aquinas are on the same page for the most part. They are both stating that this office worker used reason to arrive at his conclusion that he was entitled his paid time off as well as additional time without pay. They slightly differ when Augustine states that the reasons must be justifiable in order to obtain his temporal well-being. Aquinas is stating that the...