Photo by: Wes Yarborough

Carolyn Woo, dean of the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind., said that people often struggle to find balance between doing the right thing and damaging their career or reputation in a speech at DU’s Gates Auditorium last Thursday.

Around 100 people came to the auditorium to hear Woo’s speech, titled “Building Ethical Cultures: Can It Be Done?” The event, which lasted a little over an hour, was sponsored by the DU Notre Dame club.

Woo began her lecture by asking the audience to consider the questions: Can ethics really be taught?

Why don’t people do the right thing all the time?

“I think people generally want to do the right thing and know what the right thing is,” said Woo. “Unfortunately, sometimes they feel the pressure to succeed even when it requires compromising their values.

Much work is required to cultivate the commitment to and courage required to do the right thing for the right reason.”

According to Woo, some basic human social needs are often behind ethical dilemmas.

People may want to do the right thing, but they also want to win.

If doing the right thing and being ethical will damage a person’s job or reputation, they are far more likely to let the right thing pass to the side, she said.

Woo claimed that it is the job of the adult community to prepare the youth so that they have the moral ability to make decisions; she cited a Notre Dame professor’s conclusion that moral choices are a matter of personal choice.

Woo explained that simply knowing right from wrong is not enough to ensure the ethical behavior of someone.

Albert Bandura, a psychology professor at Stanford University, said the brain has self-regulating systems that do not come into play until they are activated

Just because we know something is wrong does not mean that we choose to regulate ourselves,” he said.