Ethics –plural noun
2. the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.
3. moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence.
Ahhh, that feels nice to see the official definition of the term. But now, the real question is what I think ethics are. The definition says it is a system of moral principles, which is very true. I think that ethics depend on each society, culture and personal prefernces, though. There are few ethics that are universal such as,
_ Do not kill
_ Do not steal
_ Do not lie
Those ones are pretty obvious to most people. There may be a time or two when for the betterment of humanity on of those laws must be broken but overall they are the three that always stand strong. When we took the ethics quiz, my top man was John Stuart Mill. After reading his thoughts in his essay about Utilitarianism I have to agree, for the most part, with him. He says that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse. I agree with that in some ways because most people just want to be happy, but I think that our actions can hurt others while still making us happy, so what Mill says is not always true. I am going to go for this ethics idea in three parts; personal ethics, social ethics, and our actual actions. The first to just have to do with our thoughts and thinking about ethics, while the third is about our actual ethical actions upon which we act.
Personal ethics come from the inside. These are the thoughts, notions and inclinations that begin inside of us from the day we are born. What is covered in this category, also is the ethics of our thoughts. Not every thought each person thinks is a good thought, or "ethical". Although our thoughts matter a lot, what is more important is if we act upon them. So my opinion is that everyone has some sort of unethical notion inside of them, because that is the human condition. We must teach ourselves the kinder reaction to situations rather than yielding to our impulsive side.
Ahhh, that feels nice to see the official definition of the term. But now, the real question is what I think ethics are. The definition says it is a system of moral principles, which is very true. I think that ethics depend on each society, culture and personal prefernces, though. There are few ethics that are universal such as,
_ Do not kill
_ Do not steal
_ Do not lie
Those ones are pretty obvious to most people. There may be a time or two when for the betterment of humanity on of those laws must be broken but overall they are the three that always stand strong. When we took the ethics quiz, my top man was John Stuart Mill. After reading his thoughts in his essay about Utilitarianism I have to agree, for the most part, with him. He says that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse. I agree with that in some ways because most people just want to be happy, but I think that our actions can hurt others while still making us happy, so what Mill says is not always true. I am going to go for this ethics idea in three parts; personal ethics, social ethics, and our actual actions. The first to just have to do with our thoughts and thinking about ethics, while the third is about our actual ethical actions upon which we act.
Personal ethics come from the inside. These are the thoughts, notions and inclinations that begin inside of us from the day we are born. What is covered in this category, also is the ethics of our thoughts. Not every thought each person thinks is a good thought, or "ethical". Although our thoughts matter a lot, what is more important is if we act upon them. So my opinion is that everyone has some sort of unethical notion inside of them, because that is the human condition. We must teach ourselves the kinder reaction to situations rather than yielding to our impulsive side.
Social ethics are pretty self explainitory. The ethics that we live by that our culture and society instill in us would be social ethics. My belief is that things such as, "drive on the correct side of the road", "hold the door for others", "do not steal" and " do not cheat" are ethics made by society. There is such a fine line between theses things though. I do sometimes wonder what makes an ethic external or internal. But, for the most part it can be figured out which is which.
And the real information that makes ethics interesting is the actions. We can think and wonder as much as we want but we cannot really ruin our own morals or ethics unless we ACT upon something unethical. We can think, " that girl is so annoying, I want to yell at her" without getting in trouble. Where the real juice is lies is if we act on our unethical, or ethical ideas. I think ethics has to do a lot with free will and the courage each of us has inside us. Each day, there are plenty of things I wish I had done, and plenty of things I wish I had not done. It is odd because for the most part, humans regret our actions rather than our thoughts. Actions are experienced one way or another by another living creature even if we don't think so.
So there are basics to ethics, but the cross cultural and personal ethics are just plain HARD to pin point. We all live by a combination of internal ethics and social ethics, that officially come into play as we act upon them.
So there are basics to ethics, but the cross cultural and personal ethics are just plain HARD to pin point. We all live by a combination of internal ethics and social ethics, that officially come into play as we act upon them.
I was struck by your insight that we "regret our actions rather than our thoughts". It's funny that we do not blame ourselves for the occasional hateful imagining, I suppose attributing it to human nature. But do you think there comes a point when thoughts can become poisonous and immoral? If someone is constantly filled with hate and deceit, if that is what defines his or her inner self, then how can we call that moral? We so often value others' good deeds because of what those actions say about their personalities (or inner selves, if personality is too broad of a term). We reason that an inherent goodness is what prompts selfless acts. But people do not always act according to their thoughts or impulses, for whatever reason (my fellow psych students will recognize this as cognitive dissonance). So if a person acts morally but thinks immorally, are they a moral or immoral person? By today's standards and your ideas, I would guess we would call them "good". However, I am beginning to question just how much we can define a person by their actions.
ReplyDelete