One important component of ethical decision making is considering all of the parties involved. Many refer to them as stakeholders.

Stakeholder theory has been articulated in a number of ways, but in each of these ways stakeholders represent a broader constituency for consideration. The theory arose in the corporate responsibility sector when many people began to take issue with Milton Friedman’s rule “the only responsibility of a corporation is to make a profit.” As such, the only stakeholder group a corp. was responsible to was its shareholders.

People started to look at the ways corps make a profit and at whose expense. It’s cheaper for a corporation to dump wastes in the river rather than disposing of it properly but it would harm the surrounding community, downstream users and wildlife. Even if it weren’t legally restricted from doing so, most believe it is WRONG for a corporation to do so. Thus we extend a corporation's responsibilities to non-STOCKholders as well. We refer to all that are impacted as STAKEholders.

One very broad definition of a stakeholder is “any group or individual which can affect or is affected by an organization." The theory is adopted widely through many sectors now, including urban planning. Any organization, any project will be benefitted from a thorough analysis and review of the impact it has on others.

Please refer to the sample stakeholder wheel provided for you.

Stakeholders may be considered as primary or secondary - some will move around in order of importance in a given situation. What is important, however, is identifying them and considering them.

Identifying the stakeholders impacted by a project or corporation is the first step toward developing a sustainability plan.

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Some people think that as long as something is legal, it is ethical. This is referred to as The Conventional Ethic. The problem is that although we have a lot of laws, there could never be one to cover every decision we have to make. In addition, ethics and law is very different, and the way we make those decisions are very different.

Law sets out what must be done. To obey law is to comply to mandatory rules and to follow orders. A law is an imposed rule that often follows social mores. For example, a societal group agrees that killing members of the society is not a good thing and so they pass a law making it a rule not to do so. But deciding whether or not to obey the law is not necessarily a complicated decision. First, you need to know what the law demands and then you choose whether to obey it. (Most people behave as directed.) This can be referred to as a binary decision, or one like those made by computers. It is just “yes” or “no”, obey or not obey.

Ethical conduct is not mandatory. Ethical decisions rest upon choosing one behavior over another. You must possess a critical consciousness to make an ethical decision. Your decision is multi-faceted and may depend upon the weight you give to competing criteria or interests. That is why two very good people can disagree on a course of action. Who is right and who is wrong? Your answer will depend upon the weight you give to competing interests.

Let me give you an example: suppose you are sitting in my classroom and I am lecturing. Let’s also suppose that my son is waiting for me in my office in the building next door. A campus police officer comes into the room and tells me that there is some kind of emergency requiring the immediate evacuation of the building. As a mother, who loves her son (even though he drives me crazy) I may decide to make a beeline to my office to warn my son and get him to safety, calling out a warning to my students to get out. You, however, may think that as a faculty member who knows the building that I have a greater duty to help as many students as I possibly can get to safety prior to warning my son.

Who is right and who is wrong?

Both of us could make credible arguments and give good reasons to support our decision.

There are ethical theories to support both courses of action, although most ethical theories would probably support the greater good.

So, the law sets out what we must do, gives us the legal minimum, the least that is expected of us. Ethical questions require us to answer the question what should we do? But, sometimes the “must dos” of law and “ought to dos” of ethics get jumbled.

The law is affected by moral concepts and social mores but we can’t always say “if it’s legal it’s moral” For example, it might seem highly immoral to most people not to warn a blind person who is about to walk off a cliff- but in many jurisdictions there is no legal obligation to warn such person.

Conversely, moral questions arise concerning legal business practices. For example, some people might question the exportation of products banned for use here in the United States to developing countries, or the slaughtering of baby seals for coats. Both are legal practices that could be questioned on ethical grounds.

It is also possible for illegal acts to seem morally preferable to following the law. For example, many people believed that those committing acts of civil disobedience in the 1950s and 1960s to challenge segregation law were acting appropriately and the laws were immoral.

Legality is often a reliable guide to moral behavior but it cannot cover all of the ethical questions that arise during our lives.