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The 7 Principles of Business Ethics (and How C717 Tests Them)
Most lists of “business ethics principles” are written for a general business audience and never touch a WGU rubric. That disconnect is the problem: knowing the seven principles in the abstract doesn’t tell you what to write in A1 through A6. Below, each principle is paired with the specific section of C717 it shows up in, so you can see exactly where the theory becomes a graded requirement.
Note: not every principle below maps to a single labeled rubric section. Some, like sustainability, appear more as a lens C717 expects you to be aware of than a section you’ll be scored on directly. Where that’s the case, it’s noted.
1. Honesty and Integrity
Honesty means representing facts, performance, and intentions accurately, even when the truth is inconvenient. Integrity is acting consistently with that standard when no one is checking.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A3 and A4 (dilemma analysis) |
| How to apply it | Honesty is usually the obligation on one side of your A3 dilemma — the duty to disclose, report, or represent accurately, weighed against loyalty, self-interest, or harm avoidance on the other side. In the EKP1 sample on this page’s Task 2 guide, the account manager’s duty of honesty to the client is exactly this principle in action. |
2. Fairness
Fairness means similar cases are treated similarly, and decisions are made on relevant criteria rather than favoritism, bias, or convenience.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A2 (employer responsibilities) and A5 (corporate ethical decisions) |
| How to apply it | Fairness is the principle behind “equitable accountability standards” in A2 — the idea that consequences should apply the same way at every level of the org chart. It’s also the core tension in classic A5 scenarios like a biased promotion decision: a qualified candidate passed over for a personal friend. |
3. Transparency
Transparency means relevant information is made visible to the people affected by a decision, rather than withheld for convenience or advantage.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A2 (psychological safety) and A3 (disclosure dilemmas) |
| How to apply it | Transparency overlaps with honesty but isn’t identical to it: honesty is about not lying, transparency is about proactively surfacing information. The “psychological safety” responsibility in A2 — employees feeling free to raise concerns without retaliation — only matters because transparency requires that information actually surface, not just that no one lies about it. |
4. Respect for People (Rights-Based Ethics)
This principle holds that people have inherent rights and dignity that shouldn’t be traded away for organizational convenience, even if doing so would produce a “better” aggregate outcome. It’s closely associated with Kantian ethics, which treats people as ends in themselves rather than means to an end.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A1 (employee rights) directly; occasionally A4 as a third theory |
| How to apply it | A1 is built entirely on this principle: safety, fair compensation, and freedom from discrimination are all framed as rights an employee holds simply by virtue of being a person in the employment relationship — not benefits granted at the employer’s discretion. Some stronger A4 submissions briefly bring in a Kantian lens alongside the required utilitarian and relativistic analysis; check your task instructions to confirm whether a third theory is expected or just optional depth. |
5. Responsibility and Accountability
This principle holds that individuals and organizations own the consequences of their decisions — including decisions made under pressure, ambiguity, or with imperfect information.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A1 (employee responsibilities) and A6 (rationalizations) |
| How to apply it | Every right in A1 is paired with a responsibility — that pairing is this principle made structural. A6 tests the same idea from the failure side: explaining the rationalizations people use to avoid owning responsibility (“the policy gap is their problem, not mine”) is really an exercise in showing you understand what accountability looks like when it breaks down. |
6. Loyalty
Loyalty means a degree of commitment to colleagues, teams, and the organization. On its own it’s a legitimate value — but business ethics treats it as a principle that has to be balanced against the others, not one that automatically wins.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A3 (the other side of most dilemmas) and A6 (rationalizations) |
| How to apply it | Loyalty is almost always the obligation competing against honesty or fairness in a well-built A3 dilemma — loyalty to a friend versus fairness to other candidates, loyalty to a team versus honesty to a client. The rubric isn’t asking you to decide that loyalty is wrong; it’s asking you to show that you understand why a reasonable person could weigh it heavily, which is exactly what makes the scenario a genuine dilemma rather than an obvious answer. |
7. Social Responsibility
This principle extends ethical obligation beyond shareholders and employees to the wider set of people and communities a business’s decisions touch — customers, the public, and society at large.
| Where it shows up in C717 | A4 (stakeholder analysis under utilitarianism); not a labeled section on its own |
| How to apply it | C717 doesn’t grade “social responsibility” as its own rubric line, but it shows up inside utilitarian analysis whenever your stakeholder list extends past the people directly involved — for example, including a nonprofit client’s beneficiaries, not just the client organization, when weighing the consequences of a decision. Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder theory, referenced elsewhere in this guide’s A2 section, is the academic anchor for this principle if you want a citation. |
The Pattern Across All Seven
Look closely and the seven principles aren’t seven unrelated ideas — they’re different angles on the same underlying tension C717 keeps testing: an obligation to the self or the immediate group (loyalty, self-interest) weighed against an obligation to a wider circle of people who are also owed something (honesty, fairness, respect, accountability, social responsibility). Transparency is the mechanism that lets the wider circle know what’s happening. That tension is exactly what A3 asks you to construct, and what A4 asks you to resolve using utilitarian and relativistic reasoning.
For the section-by-section breakdown of how this plays out across A1–A6, see the C717 Task 2 guide, which includes a full annotated APA 7 sample paper.
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