Individuals' Ethical Place in World - Essay Example

I believe that people are inherently good but there are instances where they make wrong choices that sometimes considered to be unethical. Some are just too aggressive to realize their goals and intended place in their lives that sometimes they compromise ethics and propriety. Others have a distorted sense of getting to succeed that they think that in order to succeed, they have to bend morals and ethics. Most of them see life as a competition, to get ahead of others and subscribe to social Darwinism that it is the fittest who will survive and get ahead in life.

Often however, goals and objectives that were reached by bending ethics and propriety did not yield any meaning but only trouble and empty victory. We have already seen those big time unethical practices that ended in trouble. We saw Enron, Worldcom executives ending in scandals and jails and for sure, those people who were scandalized and jailed were just in pursuit of looking their place in this world albeit unethically. Thus, to truly find a rightful place that is meaningful and happy, one has to pursue his or her own place in the world ethically.

Finding our own place in the world through ethical means meant that we follow the existing laws, norm and sense of propriety. These three goes together. It is because not all actions or choices that are permitted by law do not mean ethical and proper. For example, It may be legally permissible for business just to pass the regulatory inspection but that does not necessarily mean that the products a company produces or the workplace and wage it provides to its employees are totally ethical in a sense that it produces a quality product, pays and treats its employees well.

Producing substandard products, paying employees with basement minimum wages and non-conducive workplace may be pass regulatory checks but not necessarily ethical. The same is true with norms because not all acts or actions that are deemed acceptable do not mean legal or ethical. For example, it may be acceptable for business to cheat for profit or survival because it is thought to be amoral but it does not necessarily mean legal or ethical. Lastly, the best guide to find our place in our world is through the compass of ethics because it considers all factors including legal, norm, societal and even moral aspects of what is right and wrong.

Finding a place in a world through ethical means is the one that gives us meaning the most not to mention that it does not give us any trouble. And since being our ethical place in the world did not give us any trouble in the process of achieving it nor we created enemies in getting there, it is more durable and lasting and a place that truly made our aspiration and effort worthwhile. Finding our ethical place in the world may not be easy. The path is littered with temptation and shortcuts that often, the challenges we encounter makes us give in to temptation and shortcut.

Getting to our ethical place in the world requires strong character and upright consciousness to chose and do what is right, ethical and moral and these decisions may not be easy and popular. But it can be done. We may fall or fail in the process and that place may seem farther because we are going there the right way. There are people who have done it albeit they are outnumbered by those who took shortcuts but it gives us a reason, inspiration or maybe a consolation that it is not impossible to find