C717 Business Ethics appears as BUS 3000 in the WGU catalog and carries 3 competency units, covering identification of ethical and socially responsible courses of action and the development of ethics guidelines. It is the course where sincere writing scores worst. Rubric aspects here reward structured moral reasoning, not conviction, and a passionate paper that never names a framework leaves the analytical aspects unmet. Each aspect requires a 2 on its own. C717 and BUS 3000 refer to the same course.
What C717 builds toward
Business ethics as an academic subject does two things at once. It gives you formal frameworks for evaluating conduct, which is the analytical half, and it asks you to translate those frameworks into organizational instruments such as codes and guidelines, which is the practical half. The second half is what makes it a business course rather than a philosophy unit: a conclusion about right action is worth little until it is embedded in a rule somebody can follow on a shift.
Social responsibility widens the frame past legality and past shareholders. The recurring question is who counts, and the honest answer usually creates conflict between groups with legitimate claims. Related work sits in C206 Ethical Leadership at graduate level and in D082 Emotional and Cultural Intelligence, where ethical decision-making meets cultural difference.
Turning ethical aspects into sections
Assessment type and task requirements are not published in the catalog; the Course of Study inside your portal holds them. If yours is a performance assessment, the structural discipline in an ethics document is to keep the framework, the application and the conclusion visibly separate, because a fluent moral argument tends to fuse all three and rubric aspects usually score them apart.
A worked example. Take eight scored aspects and a 2,000 word target. Reserve 150 for the case description and 100 for the close, leaving 1,750. Two aspects concern identifying the ethical issue at 175 each, so 350. Two concern framework definition at 150 each, so 300. Two concern applying frameworks to the case at 320 each, so 640. One concerns stakeholder impact at 230. One concerns the guideline or recommendation at 230. Sum: 350 plus 300 plus 640 plus 230 plus 230 equals 1,750. Notice the application aspects are worth roughly twice the definition aspects, which is the reverse of how most ethics papers are written.
Structuring an ethics analysis
| Element | What it does | What makes it fail |
|---|---|---|
| Case facts | Establishes what actually happened, neutrally | Facts written with the conclusion already loaded into the adjectives |
| Issue statement | Names the ethical question precisely | A question so broad that no framework can answer it |
| Stakeholder map | Who is affected, how, and how badly | A list with no weighting, so every interest looks equal |
| Framework one | A named theory defined and applied | Definition present, application missing |
| Framework two | A second theory that reaches a different answer | A second theory chosen because it agrees with the first |
| Reasoned conclusion | The judgment and the reason it beats the alternative | A conclusion asserted rather than derived |
| Guidelines | Rules that would prevent recurrence | Values statements that no one could follow or breach |
Evidence in a normative subject
Ethics writing needs two kinds of support and they behave differently. Framework sources are conventional: name the theory, define it from a credible source in APA, and use the definition consistently. Do not simplify a framework into a slogan, because an aspect asking you to apply a named ethical theory is scored on whether the theory did any work.
Case evidence is where ethics papers most often weaken. A case argued from a news summary can only reach conclusions the summary already implied. Where the case is public, use primary material: filings, official statements, regulatory findings, court records where they exist. Where it is from your own experience, describe the facts with the same neutrality you would apply to a stranger's conduct, which is harder and is exactly what the analysis aspects reward. WGU scans submissions through its Similarity Checker, and ethics cases are heavily written about online, so build the account from sources in your own sentences.
What passes in an ethics course
WGU marks work Competent or Not Competent, has no letter grades and no GPA, and each aspect needs its own 2. Ethics submissions come back most often for one of three things. The frameworks are described and then abandoned, so the conclusion rests on intuition. Only one framework is genuinely applied, so there is no tension to resolve. Or the guidelines section produces aspirational language that could not be enforced.
Passing documents usually contain one paragraph that most students avoid writing: the strongest case for the position they reject. Stating the opposing argument at its best, and then explaining why it loses, is what turns an opinion into an analysis, and it satisfies evaluative aspects more efficiently than any amount of additional support for your own view. Guidelines in passing documents are also testable, meaning someone could be found in breach of them. Returned tasks come back with aspect-level comments and cost nothing to resubmit at WGU.
Six mistakes that stretch this course
- Moral conviction instead of framework. Certainty is not analysis, and aspects asking for applied theory cannot be satisfied by strength of feeling.
- Two frameworks that agree. If both theories reach the same conclusion, the comparison aspect has nothing to compare.
- Legality treated as ethics. Lawful and right are different questions, and a paper that answers only the first has skipped the course.
- Stakeholders unweighted. Listing everyone affected without saying whose interest is strongest avoids the judgment being scored.
- Guidelines nobody could breach. Act with integrity is not a guideline. A rule specifying what must be disclosed, to whom, and by when is one.
- Loaded case facts. Writing the facts persuasively makes the analysis circular, and experienced evaluators spot it immediately.
Ethics task with a real dilemma in it
Send the rubric and the case. The model draft applies two frameworks properly, weighs stakeholders and produces enforceable guidelines, all aspect-mapped.
Choosing a dilemma rather than a scandal
Students almost always reach for a famous corporate scandal, and scandals make poor ethics assignments. The reason is simple: in a scandal, everybody already agrees. Fraud was committed, people were harmed, the wrongdoing is not in dispute, and the analysis collapses into a description of misconduct with frameworks bolted on afterward. There is no tension for two theories to disagree about, which is exactly what the application aspects need.
A dilemma is different. It is a situation where a reasonable, honest person could defend either course of action, and where whichever path is taken, someone with a legitimate claim is worse off. Layoffs that preserve a company's survival. A safety improvement that prices a product out of reach for the customers who most need it. Data collection that improves a service and erodes privacy. Automation that raises quality and removes jobs. Sourcing that lifts incomes abroad and hollows out a plant at home.
The test to apply before committing: can you write two paragraphs arguing opposite conclusions and believe both while writing them? If yes, the case will carry the whole rubric, because the stakeholder section will have real conflict in it, the two frameworks will genuinely diverge, and the conclusion will require a defended judgment rather than a restatement of what everyone thinks.
Three questions C717 students ask
Which ethical frameworks should I use?
Can I write about something that happened at my job?
What does support look like on an ethics course?
Three CUs in a flat-rate term
Ethics courses are among the fastest business courses to close once the case is chosen, because the research load is modest and the writing is structural. That makes C717 a natural filler course inside a six month term, run alongside something heavier. Since WGU charges one flat rate per term, a course that takes ten days rather than six weeks is a direct reduction in what every course in that term effectively cost. The tuition guide has the arithmetic.
Where C717 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 5 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.