Some readers might be familiar with Professors Guido Palazzo and Ulrich Hoffrage from the University of Lausanne who have written about the unconscious aspects of ethical decision-making. Here, for example, is the abstract of their co-authored article, Ethical Blindness:
Many models of (un)ethical decision making assume that people decide rationally and are in principle able to evaluate their decisions from a moral point of view. However, people might behave unethically without being aware of it. They are ethically blind. Adopting a sensemaking approach, we argue that ethical blindness results from a complex interplay between individual sensemaking activities and context factors.
But why only read about these fascinating themes? Palazzo and Hoffrage have now teamed up to produce a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) through Coursera scheduled to start in two weeks. Entitled, “Unethical Decision Making in Organizations,” the description sounds fascinating:
This course “Unethical decision making in organizations : A seminar on the dark side of the force” will teach you how strong organizational contexts push good people towards unethical decisions. You will also learn how to protect yourself and your organization against such forces lurking in the dark.
Need a bit more enticement? Here’s the promotional video:
Anyone can sign up for the course here, free of charge.