Patrick Delaney

Studies in Applied Ethics

PHI 1600
November 20, 2014
Secret Interviews
In this case study human resource director Laura Moscone is faced with the ethical issue
to use information off of social media in her decision of hire someone. An applicant named Jack
Friendly came into an interview and presented himself well, and he had proper qualifications.
Laura then used a social media searcher, which searches for a specific person on various media
outlets and then returns information that it collects to the user. This searcher returned statuses
and updates that Jack posted during work hours talking about his personal life, most of them
talking down on his current employer and drinking the nights before. Laura is now faced with the
main ethical issue of using private information in her decision of hiring. Private meaning that
Jack would not think employers would use to judge him in an interview process. A secondary
ethical issue appears in this case involves social media outlets and their users. Should social
media outlets keep this information confidential so that only approved users (friends, followers,
etc.) be able to see it, and the social media outlets perform intrusion detection to see if any
unapproved outside source can view the information. Another ethical issue arises when
observing the human resource directors actions compared to a regular user. Is it ethical for a
human resource officer to gather information about someone while it is looked down upon by
other users? This behavior of hoarding and reading all of someones personal information is
close to stalking when we take Lauras job out of the equation, and if a user was caught stalking,
that user could be reported, blocked, or possibly banned.

Laura has very few options available, the first option is using Jacks private information
for the hiring process, the second option is using Jacks private information for his monthly
reviews, and the last option is to not use the private information. The first option of using Jacks
private information for the hiring process would be to use the information that she searched for
in the final decision of if he gets the job or not. The second option of using Jacks private
information for his monthly reviews involves hiring Jack for his qualification alone, and then
monitoring his actions to see if they are affecting his work. The third option is to not use the
private information in the hiring process and hire him off of his qualifications alone and
assuming that he keeps his personal life and work life separate. Lauras decision will affect
several people, it will affect Jack, Laura, the companys workers, and future applicants.
Jack

Laura

Option 1
Jacks private
information will most
likely prevent him from
getting the job. Jack will
be unhappy with this
outcome. If Laura
informs him that he has
unprofessional
information all over his
social media, Jack will
have a chance to remove
this information and will
be able to apply safely
to other jobs and will
most likely be more
successful in life and be
more careful on what he
posts.
-1
Laura will probably
praised by another
member of her team for
catching such an
unprofessional
candidate in the act. She

Option 2
Jack will be given the
opportunity to work
for the company. If he
watches his posts, and
stays off of his phone
then he will stay there
until he finds a new
job or is fired for
something unrelated.
This makes Jack
happy because at least
he has a chance to
prove himself as good
of a worker as he
presented himself in
the interview with
Laura.

Option 3
Jack will be happy because
he got the job, he is
unaware that his
information was looked at
and is none the wiser.

+1
Laura will be praised
for coming up with a
good alternative for
the two opposite
extremes. If Jack is
self-aware and

+1
Laura will be unhappy
because she will be living
in constant fear. Her
company requires
collection of internet
information in her hiring. If

Companys
workers

Future
applicants

will be happy because

she is doing her job well
and has the opportunity
to hire someone better,
with a more mature and
professional personal
life.
+1
The companys workers
will be more happy and
efficient because Laura
prevented another bad
employee from joining
their team. Now the
workers can get a more
efficient worker that
does not come in hung
over or talk bad about
them.

watches himself then

she will be praised
with hiring a good
worker.

someone checks after her,

then she is at risk of being
fired or replaced from her
job for disobeying this rule.

+1
The companys
workers will be happy
with this choice. They
get the worker that
was missing until Jack
was hired to improve
their efficiency. They
might become
unhappy if Jack slacks
off or starts talking
negatively of him, but
he would be fired after
they brought it up in
his monthly review.
This would make the
companys workers
happy again.

+15
Future applicants will be
either happy or unhappy
depending on how they
keep their social media
profiles. If they keep
their profiles clean and
healthy they are more
likely to get the job and
be happy, if they keep
them unprofessional like
Jack, then they are more
likely to not get the job
and be unhappy.
+8/-2

+15
Future applicants
wont exist if Jack
keeps his job, but if
they apply for a new
position, or Jacks
position after he is
fired, they will be
happy because the
company is giving
them a chance.

-1
The companys workers
can be affected in two
different ways.
The first is if Jack keeps his
private life away from his
professional life. If Jack
drinks on the weekends to
avoid being hung-over
during the work week, and
only badmouths because
his old job was really
horrible, then the
companys workers will be
happy to have this efficient
and qualified worker on
their team.
The second way is if Jack
is not keeping these two
lives separate. Then the
companys worker will be
unhappy with this
unprofessional worker that
Laura hired.
+15 or -15
Future applicants wont
exist if Jack is keeping his
private and professional
lives separate. If Jack does
not then the future
applicants will be happy
because they are not being
shut down off of their
postings, whether they are
appropriate or not.

+10

+10

Rule Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that asks the question what rules do we need for
a good society? Rule utilitarianism is focused on making the most people happy with a set of
rules that promote happiness for the most amount of people possible. If everyone all follows
these rules then the world should be as happy as it can possibly get. At the same time, these rules
are subject to change, if a rule can be changed or removed to make even more people happy, then
it should be changed or removed. This allows the world to be as happy as possible at all times.
Applying the ethical theory of rule utilitarianism to these three options should give us the best
rule to follow for problems similar to this. The first option of using Jacks private information in
the hiring decision gives us 24 people happy and 3 people unhappy, totaling to an overall
happiness level of 21. The second option of hiring Jack based on his qualifications, but keeping
in mind his private information for monthly reviews gives us 27 people happy and zero unhappy,
leaving us with a happiness of 27. The last option on the table is ignoring Jacks private
information and hiring him on his qualifications alone. This has the possibility of producing 26
people happy and 1 person unhappy leaving us with one total of 25, it also has the possibility of
making 11 people happy and 16 people unhappy, leaving us with a second total of -5 happiness.
Using the ethical theory of rule utilitarianism Laura will know that the second option of
hiring Jack based on his qualifications but keeping his personal information in mind for his
monthly reviews is the best rule to follow. This is because it makes everyone possible happy,
while in the other rules, a few people remain unhappy. This rule should be used in this decision
and in future decisions unless another option is brought up that more people are happy with,
which is almost impossible because everyone is happy in this example.
Flaws are present in everything; this is why the world is not a global utopia. There are
many flaws in this argument and it is only fair that they are known for more precise decisions.

Addressing the most obvious flaw of them all, it is impossible for everyone to be happy using a
certain rule. In the second option it is possible for Jack to feel violated for being stalked before
the hiring and that would make the total happiness level lower. Also not every company worker
has to like Jack as a person, it is hard to please everyone you meet and Jack is bound to have
someone to dislike him there, thus lowering the happiness level again. This is a completely
random variable and cannot be calculated accurately. Jack seemed to please Laura thoroughly in
his interview and has a following on social media outlets, so he must be a pretty likeable guy.
Another point to make is that they cant count Jacks personality, meaning that they are judged
by how happy the workers are with the way he works. Seeing as he was qualified for the
position, he will probably be just as efficient as everyone else once his training is done. The
second flaw is counting the future applicants in all of the options, because they might not exist in
some of the options. I tried to correct this by testing their happiness by applying the rule that
applied to Jack to each of them. The third flaw is that there are two ways option 3 turned out, one
way if Jack kept his personal life and professional life separate, and another if he did not. The
reason I had two values for this option is because we are testing the rule, and using that rule there
are two ways it can turn out. I cannot break this rule up in two different options because its the
same rule. The last flaw is assuming that company stalking the applicant is ethical. This is a
secondary issue in this case, so I just assumed that it was because the company requires it. It may
be later deemed unethical, but it is only a secondary issue in this case, but if it is then this
argument would not work.
This case is unique in its own way, and I say this because I have seen it before. During
my sophomore year at St. Petersburg Collegiate High School I was on the Ethics Bowl team and
this case was presented. But the main ethical issue was actually if company stalking was ethical

or not, unlike this case where that was only a secondary issue. My teamed deemed this stalking
unethical, so writing this paper as if it was ethical was actually a slight challenge. It opened my
mind to think about it in a different way and I found it refreshing, which is why I chose this case.
Another thing that I could improve on is my options, for some reason I could only spawn these
three options and I was drawing a blank for more. I feel if I had more options it would make the
argument stronger, and may even have a different outcome. Using the theory of rule
utilitarianism was also new to me, because I never fully understood it. I used the lecture notes
and books from class to help me in the writing of this paper. There may be something I might
have misunderstood and used it wrong, but I feel confident in my understanding of the theory.