Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term comes from the Greek word ethos, which means "character". Ethics is a complement to Aesthetics in the philosophy field of Axiology. In philosophy, ethics studies the moral behavior in humans, and how one should act.
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| Ethics and Morals: Timeless and Universal? (Photo credit: stephenccwu) |
Michael
taught ethics to a group of carpenters at a part time college for
certain duration. When his wife and mother in law came to know about
this, they were quite amused. His mother in law stated that they were
the correct group to be taught ethics. In fact, his wife’s colleagues
were eager to know whether anyone cleared this course. Everyone
seemed to be amazed at this.
But
instead of being amazed at the situation, we should be actually
worried. Carpenters are not the only one to be taught this subject.
There are many others who need to learn ethics. Businessman as a
group are often believed to be involved in unethical practices which
they tend to justify on the basis that they are only doing business
as if they are doing a part of their job. Then ideally there should
not be any difference between them and criminals.
If
we consider politicians then the situation will be clearer.
Politicians are often considered as unethical as they often tend to
get involved in malpractices just to stay in office or get elected.
They don’t shy away from lying, pandering to the lowest common
denominator to achieve their means or spending the tax payer’s
money to meet their own requirements.
While some people
don’t care about right and wrong, good or bad, most people fail to
differentiate it and many who can are reluctant to take adequate
measures. The concept of ethics needs to clear from the school level
when a child’s mind is fresh and they are eager o learn new things.
Yet we see, most of
the K12 schools don’t think it necessary to incorporate “ethics”
as a subject matter of study in their syllabus. They think that
teaching about obedience, laws and rules and moral characteristics
are enough. Even most business schools only impart classes on
business laws and practices. In spite of so many nationwide scandals,
and corporate malpractices highlighted in the national and local
newspapers yet business schools have not incorporated ethics as a
subject matter.
What majority of us,
fails to realize is that ethics is not the study of what is socially
or legally correct, accepted or tolerated. Ethics is actually the
study of what is right and wrong i.e. it is the sense of discovering
and implementing reasonable general principles that helps us to
decide what to do and what not to do.
Without any reservation, I can emphatically state that ethics determines everything. Not just at home living with your parents, but at K - 12 and even more so while in institutions of higher learning. How and why you learn effects what you learn. Ethics determines your selection of majors and minors, how you pass the courses and with what you take away. Once you begin your career, your ethics will determine your career path. The only careers that you can be successful in with poor ethics are criminal in nature. The most successful endeavors in my life have been those where I put other people first and gave without expecting anything in return. As a matter of fact, a return on those efforts never even entered my thoughts and when a return came I was amazed. Success is inversely proportional to your level of self serving. This should have been captured by the child from their parents, but with most adults operating at a low level of ethics, the children are not getting a good education on ethics. When the child does wrong, the parents defend them to a fault. All you have to do to realize the part that ethics plays in business is to think about the people that you buy from and their ethics. If the young adult does learn the results of poor ethics, it is usually too late and they become bitter and even more self serving, the workplace is full of them. Everyone wants to deal with an honest party, why?
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