ETH 316 Week 2 Ethics, Morality and Law Example

Legal Is the Floor: Separating Ethics, Morality and Law in a Grocery Chain's Store Closing

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ETH/316: Ethics and Social Responsibility

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Crossroads Fresh Markets, its stores, people and figures are composites written for a model paper.

Week 1 applied four ethical theories to a decision facing Crossroads Fresh Markets, the invented central Indiana grocer: whether to close its east side Indianapolis store, which lost about $640,000 last year. The analysis recommended testing alternatives for six months and, if they fail, closing with generous notice and support. This paper asks a sharper question about the closing itself: what does the law require, what do the people affected expect and what does ethics ask?

Three Ideas Defined

Law consists of rules made and enforced by governments, backed by penalties. Morality, as used here, refers to the beliefs about right and wrong that individuals and communities hold, shaped by religion, family, culture and experience. Ethics refers to the reasoned examination of those beliefs: asking which can be justified with principles that others could accept, such as the theories applied in Week 1. The three overlap heavily, since most laws reflect widely shared moral beliefs and most moral beliefs can be ethically defended, but they are not the same. Paine (1994) made a similar point about organizations, arguing that strategies built only on legal compliance prevent some misconduct but do not create the shared commitment that an integrity-based approach, grounded in values, can build. Some actions are legal but widely seen as wrong; some moral beliefs do not hold up under ethical scrutiny; and some laws lag behind what ethics would ask.

What the Law Requires

The federal WARN Act sets the rule here. A company of at least 100 workers that shuts a site and puts 50 or more people there out of work must warn them in writing two months ahead. Crossroads, with 4,800 employees, would close a site with 58 workers, so the act applies. Indiana adds no stronger requirement. The law requires notice; it does not require severance, transfers or any help for residents who lose access to food. Closing the store is legal. Closing it with 60 days' notice and nothing more is also legal.

What the People Affected Believe

Interviews conducted for this paper with six employees and four residents, all composites, show moral expectations that go well beyond the law. Employees with long tenure believe loyalty should be returned: "I gave this store twenty years. I'd expect more than a letter." Residents believe a store that has served the neighborhood for decades has some obligation to it. A pastor whose food pantry the store supplies said, "They made money here for a long time. Leaving without a plan isn't right." These are moral beliefs, sincerely held and widely shared in the neighborhood. They are not law, and on their own they do not settle what the chain must do, but they matter.

The law asks for a letter sixty days ahead; the people who worked there expected to be treated like they mattered.

What Ethics Asks

Ethics tests these beliefs. Is the employees' claim to loyalty justified? Week 1's Kantian analysis suggests that the chain must not treat employees merely as means, which supports honesty and help in transition, though not a guarantee of permanent employment. Is the residents' claim justified? Utilitarian reasoning supports it in part: closing causes concentrated harm to people with few alternatives, which a responsible company should try to reduce. But ethics also weighs the chain's duty to its other 4,700 employees, which requires it to remain solvent. Reasoned ethics, then, supports some but not all of the moral expectations: generous notice, help with jobs and help for residents, but not an obligation to run a losing store forever.

When Law and Ethics Pull Apart

The case shows why law cannot be the whole answer. Laws are written for many situations at once and set minimums that most people can agree on. The WARN Act was passed after waves of plant closings in the 1980s left workers with no warning; it reflects a moral belief that people deserve time to prepare. But Congress chose 60 days and no severance as a compromise among interests. A company that treats that compromise as the full measure of its duty is relying on the law to do ethical work it was never designed to do. Ethics fills the gap by asking what this company owes these people in this situation.

A Three-Domain Model

Carroll (1991) pictured a firm's duties as layers, with making a profit at the base, obeying the law above it, acting ethically above that and voluntary giving at the top. Schwartz and Carroll (2003) revised this into a three-domain model in which economic, legal and ethical responsibilities overlap, so that actions can fall into one, two or all three domains. They argued that the best actions fall in the center, where they are profitable, legal and ethical at once, and that actions in only one domain deserve scrutiny.

Applied to Crossroads:

Closing with 60 days' notice only: economic and legal, but weak in the ethical domain.

Keeping the store open indefinitely at a loss: arguably ethical toward residents, legal, but not economic, and it would put other jobs at risk.

Closing after testing alternatives, with 120 days' notice, transfers and a shuttle for residents: legal, ethical and, at modest cost, economically sound. This falls in the center of the model.

Testing the Moral Expectations

Not every expectation holds up. Some employees said the company should keep the store open no matter the cost, because it had made money there in the past. Ethical reasoning does not support that: past profits do not create an unlimited future duty, and keeping a losing store open could endanger jobs elsewhere. Other expectations hold up well: honest warning, respect for long service and help finding new work. Separating the two is exactly what ethics, as distinct from morality, contributes.

Recommendation

If alternatives fail, Crossroads should treat the law's 60 days as the floor. It should give 120 days' notice, offer every employee a transfer to another store within 15 miles with no loss of seniority, provide severance for those who cannot transfer, pay for bus passes or a van service to its closest store for twelve months and donate equipment to the food pantry. The cost, about $400,000, is less than a year of the store's losses.

Conclusion

Law, morality and ethics each give a different answer to how Crossroads should close a store. The law requires 60 days' notice. The moral beliefs of employees and residents expect much more. Ethics tests those beliefs, supports many of them and balances them against the chain's duty to remain solvent. A three-domain model shows that the best action meets all three, treating legal compliance as the floor rather than the ceiling.

References

Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(91)90005-G

Paine, L. S. (1994). Managing for organizational integrity. Harvard Business Review, 72(2), 106-117.

Schwartz, M. S., & Carroll, A. B. (2003). Corporate social responsibility: A three-domain approach. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(4), 503-530. https://doi.org/10.5840/beq200313435