The Slacker Ethical Dilemma

Making ethical decisions is a part of life.  Whether in personal, academic, or work scenarios, making ethical decisions can sometimes be tricky.  In the fictional story ”Picking Up the Slack,” Greg is faced with an ethical dilemma (Wilson).  Greg is a college student who is working on a group project with some of his friends and a girl named Natalie, who he has known since freshmen year.  Greg and Natalie are both seniors and close to graduation. They get along, but are not close friends.  From the very beginning of the group project, it is obvious to Greg and the other team members that Natalie is a slacker.  Her work towards the project is subpar and she consistently puts forth the minimal amount of effort to contribute to the group.  Greg, along with the other members of the team decide to not confront Natalie about her shortcomings, but are left to do much more work, including fixing Natalie’s mistakes.  The group ended up getting an A on the project.  After the presentation was completed, each team member has to complete an evaluation on each of the other team members.  Greg is wondering if he should evaluate Natalie honestly or give her a good evaluation.  Giving Natalie an honest review could negatively affect her GPA (Wilson).  We will delve deeper into the ethical dilemma Greg faces.

There are two different schools of thought we will consider.  The first is referred to as the utilitarian approach.  This theory is based on making an ethical decision by making the choice that does “ the most good or does the least harm” (Velasquez et al.).  If Greg chooses to give Natalie a good review, it will not hurt her grade.  It also would not hurt the team grade, since the team already earned an A for the project.  On the other hand, if Greg were to give Natalie a negative review, which she rightly deserved, it could negatively affect her GPA.  There is also a possibility that she may not graduate, since they are so close to graduation and we don’t know what Natalie’s grades are in this or other courses she is in.  If Natalie were to not graduate, it could have tremendous negative impact on her and possibly change her timeline for school, career, relationships with her family, etc.

The second school of though is known at the virtue approach.  The virtue approach makes someone take a deep look at their truest self and evaluate whether a decision will change who that person is and if it will reflect the best part of themselves (Velasquez et al.).  Giving Natalie a good evaluation when she really didn’t put forth the effort or work to deserve it would essentially make Greg a liar.  Whether anyone else knows Greg lied is irrelevant to the fact that Greg lied and he would know.  Testing his ability to tell the truth in this instance may change him for the worse and not only make him doubt himself, but make it easier to be dishonest in the future.

My advice for Greg would be to do the least amount of damage, but also be true to himself in telling the truth.  Greg could complete the evaluation how many people do employee annual evaluations, sandwiched with positive and negative information.  Greg could alternate something positive Natalie did well, such as come up with a unique perspective, then follow with the fact that she didn’t follow through with exploring the idea with research.  This way Greg can tell the truth, without completely smashing Natalie’s reputation with the teacher or her grade.

There is another aspect of this dilemma that needs to be looked at.  Giving Natalie a negative evaluation may give her a bad grade in this class, but shouldn’t diminish her overall grade point average to the point that she wouldn’t graduate.  Natalie needs to know that her performance was not acceptable.  If she went out into the workforce and performed poorly like this, she wouldn’t be able to keep a job for very long, no matter what degree she had.

Personal responsibility is defined on the Personal Responsibility Rubric as “. . . the ability to reason about and evaluate ethical human conduct” (Rhodes).  While Natalie needs to take responsibility for her actions, Greg also needs to take responsibility by looking at how his own actions affected how the group project turned out.  This is a big life lesson for Greg.  There will be many times when working in a group that there will be a slacker present.  The initial ethical problem is that the team did not express to Natalie their expectations, problems, and frustrations with her.  Natalie could have possibly done a better job if she was told that her performance was unacceptable sometime near the beginning of the project.  The teammates withholding this necessary constructive criticism set Natalie up for future failure.  In “Ethics of Teamwork,” William Frey discusses a possible barrier to a successful group project.  “Conflict of Effort, refers to someone in the group who is overwhelmed by overcommitting themselves to a high work load (Frey).  This could be a reason for Natalie’s apparent lack of concern for the group project.  Perhaps the other members of the group could have helped Natalie work through her issues if they had communicated openly with her during group meetings.

Works Cited

Frey, William. "Ethics of Teamwork." Rice University, cnx.org/contents/7Rh1jBAZ@18/Ethics-of-Teamwork. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Rhodes, Terrel L., editor. "Personal Responsibility Rubric." Stephen F. Austin State University, 2010, www.sfasu.edu/acadaffairs/images/FINAL_PERSONAL_RESPONSIBILITY_RUBRIC(1).pdf. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Velasquez, Manuel, et al. "A Framework for Ethical Decision Making." Santa Clara University, 1 Aug. 2015, www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Wilson, Chloe. "Picking Up the Slack." Santa Clara University, 11 Mar. 2013, www.scu.edu/the-big-q/the-big-q-blog/picking-up-the-slack.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.