While the Dombrowski and Gough & Price articles were very different in what they were evaluating in regards to ethics, they both shared a common theme – that ethics is ultimately an individual experience. While yes, companies have certain codes of ethics they stand by, these codes change based upon situation, societal changes, law changes, and changes of opinion. Ethics is personal – something that takes into consideration how you feel about a particular situation, looking at how it affects other people, the environment, etc., and making a decision that is best for everyone. No information processing system could ever be depended upon to make an ethical decision because a machine can ot have emotions, and emotion does play a part in making ethic decision. Like Dombrowski pointed out, “technical information does not determine fully either its own meaning or its own ethicality,” (332) and “impersonal procedures cannot substitute for personal judgment,” (331).

While computers and other technical systems can have all of the information that a person making an ethical decision have, they will never possess pathos capabilities – the ability to understand how people feel about certain situations. Not all decisions can be made based purely upon fact. Dombrowski iterates that in looking at various decisions that were made, that “Repeatedly, decisions show that personal decision-making was much more important than impersonal procedural decision-making,” (331). We as a people have come to depend upon technology for risk evaluation, quick fact processing, but we have to remember that machines can not process emotion, and it is a necessary part of ethics. If we want to “treat others as we would like to be treated,” (which is probably the most basic universal ethical value, we have to evaluate as people how we would feel in a certain situation to decide how to deal with another person in any given instance.

Dombrowski states “Ethics…is problematic. It is not a fixed set of rules but an ongoing human activity that must continually be thrashed out for particular circumstances and people,” (337), which meshes with the ideas of Gough & Price who assert that, “Ethics is lived, not worn like a coat for convenience or appearance,” (327). Textbooks can not teach an ethical decision for a given situation or really give a specific process of how to achieve an ethical decision. Each situation is different, with some factors being more important than others. Certainly, in some cases legality is an important part of the ethical decision making processes, but more often than not doing what is best for the most people and being able to assess outcomes is the primary focus of ethical decision-making. I don’t know that ethics can be taught in a business writing class, or that it should be. Certainly, I see where it will be helpful in the real world, but personal ethics are much larger than just writing at a job. They have been developed for years and are different for each individual. Therefore, I don’t even know that an evaluation of how these books teach ethical decision making is even necessary, because honestly at this point, personal ethics would be almost impossible to change, and no process will ever be “right.”