Examining the Case Study from a Utilitarian Viewpoint

This essay examines a case study from a utilitarian viewpoint to determine if the actions of geologists were ethical or unethical. It analyzes the impact on various stakeholder groups and applies the utilitarian view to judge the actions.

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Ethics can be best put as the values which are followed by the individuals when they
make the different choices. The ethics are the factor which guide the actions of the different
people, be it natural entities or manmade entities (Mizzoni, 2009). When it comes to the
business scenarios, the ethics play a crucial role. This is again amplified when the people in
workplace are faced with situations covering ethical dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas are such
situations where the individual is asked to make a choice between two options, where none of
the two options prove to be the best ones (Smith, 2008). This is the reason why it is suggested
that when a person faces such ethically dilemmatic situations, they should make use of the
leading ethical theories. Each theory has a different focus group (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). For
instance, the utilitarian view focuses on maximizing the utility for the majority (Kahane, Everett,
Earp, Farias & Savulescu, 2015). This essay is concerned with examination of the case study,
from the utilitarian viewpoint, to hold the acts of the geologists as ethical or unethical.
The operations of any business are undertaken for the stakeholders, where their work is
undertaken in a manner which takes care of the needs of the different stakeholder groups like
the consumer, government, suppliers, investors, and creditors. The stakeholder theory presents
that the business is not to be operated for earning profits for the shareholders but for bettering
the cause of all the stakeholders (Mansell, 2015). The case study presented in the assignment
also showcases a number of stakeholder groups, which include the employees, the company
itself, the geologists and even their family members, in addition to the consumers and the tax
department. The impact of the actions of the geologists was unique based on the stakeholder
group. To elucidate upon this further, the impact of these actions on each stakeholder groups
are elucidated.
For the first stakeholder group, i.e., for the company, the actions of the geologists held
the most negative impact. The reason for this stems from the fact that the geologists made use
of the money allocated to them by the company for a different purpose, and without taking the
permission for doing the same. They took the full costs from the company, but decided to save
money by using the alternative modes of living at the outside location. They could have easily
informed the company about this alternative mode, and yet the geologists stayed mum about
it. As a result, the company incurred higher costs, which could have been easily saved, and used
for the better of the other stakeholder groups.
The employees of the company for which the geologists worked, were also the
stakeholder group affected in this case study. The reason for this stems from the fact that the
company provides expenses to the individuals based on their profile. Due to the profile of
geologists and them leaving away from their families, they are given higher allowances in
comparison to general employees. Due to this, the allowances of the employees are restricted.
Also, the employees do not get such opportunity to save money owing to restricted allowances.
The possible savings in costs, which the geologists tap for themselves, could be used for giving
higher allowances to the employees.
A very interesting stakeholder group here is the geologists themselves. The reason for
this lies in their misappropriation of the money of the company, which is a major ethical issue.

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For this action of the geologists, they would not only have to face legal costs but ethical ones as
well. This could even lead to them being expelled from their jobs owing to the misuse of the
money of the company. As a result of this, the family members of the geologists would also face
a negative impact, due to lost earnings and even a loss of lifestyle. Again, the geologists who do
not adopt this approach would not be able to save as much as the unethical geologists,
resulting in their families getting a lesser share for spending.
The tax department would also face hardships as they would not be able to tax the
geologists properly. This is particularly true due to the requirement of receipts not being a
compulsion for claiming the allowance from company. The geologists would thus be improperly
taxed, and loss of revenue would be the result for the tax department. The actions of the
company do impact the most important stakeholder group of any company, i.e., the
consumers. This action of geologists would also impact the consumers as the availability of
lesser profits with the company, owing to higher money being spent on the geologists, would
be a hurdle in benefiting the consumers, from the operations undertaken by the company.
Thus, till now, it has been established that what the geologists did was not an ethical
task, due to the negative impact which it left on the various stakeholder groups. However, as
highlighted in the introduction segment, the ethical theories clarify on the matters of actions
being ethical or unethical. In this context, now the utilitarian view is applied to judge the
actions of the stakeholders. The utilitarian provides that an action would be ethical when it
maximizes the utility of the undertaken action, for the majority (Bykvist, 2010). This theory
presents that when most of the people are given happiness owing to a particular decision being
undertaken, it would be an ethical decision (Mill, 2017). As a result of this theory, the total of
bliss of any action, without the sufferings being resulted from undertaking such action, would
be taken as the best action. So, the crux of utilitarian view is on the consequence of the
undertaken acts, instead of the action being judged (Albee, 2014).
Based on the utilitarian view, the consequences of the actions need to be analysed for
judging the acts done by the geologists. The crux of what geologists did is that they applied
their brains and found a manner to bring down their travel costs and maximize their savings.
This was particularly beneficial for the geologists and their families, and it is almost undisputed.
They got more money to maximize their interests and to improve their lifestyle. This would
allow them to improve their future by getting better education, and the like.
If the case of company as a stakeholder group is carefully analysed, the viewpoint
presented earlier proves to be wrong. This is because the actions of geologists gave a very
important learning for the company, where they learned the way of bringing down the costs for
the future group of geologists they hire. Even in the present, the geologists are providing the
company with the best standards of work, and the quality of work is never hampered. The
company also gets to continue taking the services of the geologists due to their reason, instead
of losing them to the rival company. Where this happens, the company would lose due to the
loss of talent pool, which would in turn hurt all the stakeholders, even the ones not mentioned

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here. Further, this would come with additional costs for the company, where they would have
to hire new geologists’ talent pool, which involves costs of training them as well.
Another important point worth mentioned here is that where the process of invoicing of
expenses is made, for acquitting the payment of costs of the geologists, it would prove
momentous task due to the need for adding up new people for processing these invoices, along
with the added burden of paperwork. There is also the issue of fake receipts, which would open
another Pandora box. In terms of the utility of actions undertaken by the geologists, this would
be a waste of time and resources. This would also prove as a hassle for the tax department,
who would have to track down each and every invoice and check for its authenticity. The
employees of the company can also learn from geologists in coming up with unique manner for
saving costs. Even though this does seem wrong, but where this results in company learning
new ways of saving costs, it would ultimately be beneficial, due to maximizing of utility for the
majority of people.
To conclude the entire discussion, it becomes clear that a particular matter could look
like being an unethical task, but where the ethical theories are applied; the actions of the
different individuals could be justified as being ethical. This provides the crucial learning that
every action can be justified by using the proper reasoning for the same. However, this does
show that by using a different ethical theory, the same action could be proved as unethical.
Thus, it is crucial that when the individuals are faced with such situations where they face
ethical dilemma, it is better to adopt a single ethical theory, and undertake the actions based
on that theory. This case study was just an example of how the perceptions regarding the
undertaken actions of the individuals can be changed, with the application of relevant ethical
theory. Thus, by applying the utilitarian view in this case study, the initially proven unethical
actions of the geologists were proven to be ethical for the different stakeholders.

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References
Albee, E. (2014). A history of English utilitarianism. Oxon: Routledge.
Bykvist, K. (2010). Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases.
Scarborough: Nelson Education.
Mansell, S. (2015). Book Review: Rejoinder to Veldman’s review of Capitalism, Corporations and
the Social Contract: A Critique of Stakeholder Theory (Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 271-275). Sage
UK: London, England: Sage Publications.
Mill, J.S. (2017). Utilitarianism. Dublin, OH: Coventry House Publishing.
Mizzoni, J. (2009). Ethics: The Basics. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
Smith, J.D. (2008). Normative Theory and Business Ethics. Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.