The Role of Ethics in Individual Decision-Making

This article integrates principles from decision theory and the behavioral sciences to explain the role of ethics in individual decision-making. The article formally defines critical concepts–the ethical dilemma, temptation, and the ethical threshold–and describes the decision conditions and behavioral factors that determine whether a decision-maker chooses an ethical or unethical alternative when faced with an ethical dilemma. The theory is predictive and empirically falsifiable, providing an agenda for theory-based empirical research into the role of ethics in individual decision-making.