Ethical Dilemmas in Emergency Water Distribution

Read the following:

Baker, A. (2018), What it’s like to live through Cape Town’s Massive Water Crisis.
International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) (2023), IAEM code of ethics and professional conduct.

Next, imagine you are an emergency management professional in an extreme drought situation, like what happened in South Africa. For this paper you will describe the community you are talking about. Ensure you discuss the demographics of the population (i.e. vulnerable populations, etc.) and the situation. While writing your paper, keep in mind the professional codes of ethics, and all ethical theories we have covered in the course.

Your paper must answer the following questions:

Who gets water and can you treat every member in your community equally when it comes to water distribution?
Do you have an ethical dilemma with what you ought to do versus what your personal values hold? If so, what ethical frameworks can help guide you work through this dilemma?
Which of the ethical theories we studied is best suited to deal with this particular situation and why? Which are least helpful and why?

Ethics Assignment Answers: Expert Answers on Above Ethical Dilemma Questions

Who gets water and can you treat every member equally?
In terms of deciding on who to get water, it is important to consider the basic survival needs before making a decision of distributing water. This can be drinking, cooking, sanitation etc. Vulnerable populations, especially the children and the elderly one should be given priority. However in terms of equality, it is not possible to achieve and equity is rather considered ethical in ensuring fair distribution of water.
Ethical dilemma between duties and personal values
Yes, in terms of the dilemma between duties and personal values, emergency managers may likely feel the heat between their professional duty and personal values. Their professional duty requires them to apply fair and transparent allocation methods while the personal values may encourage them to help their families and friends first.
The ethical Framework that can be utilised in guiding the above decisions includes utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics.
Most useful and least useful ethical theories
The most helpful would be utilitarianism and deontology, as utilitarianism helps in prioritising decisions and deontology aligns with IAEM professional code of ethics. In terms of least helpful, it will be relativism and egoism, as relativism justifies biased decisions whereas egotism prioritises self interest.

Disclaimer: This answer is a model for study and reference purposes only. Please do not submit it as your own work.