Cartoons are a powerful tool for reflection on ethics in the workplace. This e-book contains 151 cartoons on ethics and work, see below. Each cartoon highlights a view on ethics (an ethicism) and its risk. The cartoons can be used to address ethical issues at work in a visual and humoristic manner.

Ethics is the domain of critical reflections on moral values, norms, and behavior. Cartoons can be a powerful tool and can be used to describe and challenge morality in a visual and humoristic manner, functioning as ethics with a smile.

Each cartoon refers to a distinctive and fundamental view on ethics in the workplace. Muel Kaptijn calls these ethicisms because those are all nouns that end with the suffix –ism. Words that end in -ism describe how we think and how we perceive things. Ethicisms relate to the moral theories, doctrines, and ideologies that we follow. The ethicisms that we follow are important for what ethics means to us, how we apply ethics, and how we expect others to behave. We cannot understand or change morality without understanding ethicisms.

This e-book is an alphabetical catalog of ethicisms. Muel Kaptijn comes up with a short definition and a typical risk of each ethicism. The risk is reflected in the cartoon. The purpose of this e-book is to help people discover their ethicisms and the risks they bring in – hopefully with a smile. The cartoons can be shared with others to address ethical issues disarmingly.

Source: Muel Kaptijn. John Körver created the cartoons on the back of the sketches.

Important note: this is not a referral in terms of language quality. This is only a matter of being of service, as this e-book will be able to support some thinking and movement in intentions, attitudes, and behavior.