Ethics as Moral Guidelines - Essay Example

a) Ethics derives its importance in spite of many laws existing in any community due to the fundamental differences between law and ethics that persist so that a person abiding perfectly by laws may still act in manners that may be considered unethical. Law, definable as rules of conduct established or alternatively having formal recognition as being binding or enforced by the authority that governs any community (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009) establishes a code of conduct that all the members of the relevant community must abide and therefore sets certain norms that require members to behave uniformly in regard to these norms and violations make them subject to legal punishment. Ethics on the other hand forms the framework that acts as moral guidelines. Ethics is much more subjective and although it also establishes sets of normative codes of conduct, these codes are heterogeneous due to their subjective origins. If however, we assume Ethics to set the standards of social conduct and moral judgment then ideally, laws should enforce these (Blackburn, 2003). The importance of Ethics in spite of many laws arises precisely from the fact that finer ethical considerations and morality are often beyond the defined conducts that the limited scope of Laws are able to enforce. The necessity of ethical consideration irrespective of the legal framework of any nation can be best understood by considering historical instances where Laws were in conflict or at least not in support of what is now understood to be ethical. Until the 13th amendment of 1865 revised the Law, slavery was entirely a legal practice in the U.S.A. Prior to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; child labor was a legal practice as well. African American people had very little civil rights and when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger on Dec. 1, 1955 she violated the law (Townsend, 1998). It is in the present day almost surprising to note that women were accorded voting rights only in 1920. Such instances of something considered legal in the past later being rectified, reflect that Laws may not always be aligned with what is ethically right and the adjustment can be a time consuming process. Instances of legal binds being constraining from the perspective of ethical actions and decision making is certainly not a matter of only the past. In present days also, issues like Abortion and Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide leads to a debate due to the inherent conflict between the associated laws and ethical considerations. In the UK, Abortion is perfectly legal. However, many people are against it due to their personal ethical code identify the practice as being wrong. Similarly a person opting to end his life being terminally ill so that a good quality of life may never be enjoyed is considered to be a choice he/she should be allowed to make may be ethically right but is still illegal. The dilemma is greater for people the ill person may turn to to assist in the process. Legally, it would be considered murder. Thus, what emerges is that Laws are not always able to enforce what is ethical. Ethical values may often exceed the reach of limited legal definitions. Here in lies the importance of Ethics. b) Ethics’ primary concern lies in discerning what is right or what is wrong and identifying the fine lines that demarcate fair from unfair, good from bad, responsible from irresponsible or determining obligatory from permissible, or whether something is praiseworthy or blameworthy. It is therefore fundamentally associated with feelings of guiltiness, disgrace, resentment, umbrage, empathy, sympathy, and concern (Online Ethics Center for Engineering, 2006). Both character and conduct are therefore concerns of ethics. Public policy issues as well as matters considerable much more personal are addressed alike. While it derives considerably from the social environment and its recognized practices, commandments, religious convictions and consciences, it also assesses these sources from critical perspectives. Thus, ethics is intricate and frequently confounding and litigious and thus proves to be beyond terse, clear definition (Velasquez et al, 1987). Yet, interestingly, an instinctive sense of the notion of the ethical is embedded in all of us (Blackburn, 2003). Thus, to arrive at a definition, it is important to first untangle it from the mass of perceived knowledge and thus to set it aside from similar but different notions. First, it is important to set aside ethics from religion. Though most religions promote significantly high ethics standards, ethics is not the same as religion and nor is it true the other way around. This is best understood from the fact that if ethics were limited to religion than it would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies to all individuals irrespective of whether they are religious or not. Even atheists for that matter are subject to ethical values (Velasquez et al, 1987). Further, ethics should be distinguished from law. Although Law ideally is based upon ethical standards that majority of members of any society subscribe to, the possibility of deviation of legal practices from ethical values cannot be overruled. The aforementioned slavery laws in the pre-Civil War US and the present day apartheid laws in South Africa bear ample testimony to this fact (Velasquez et al, 1987). Finally, social acceptability or conformity to social norms should not be confused as being an ethical benchmark. Although society generally accepts behavior adjudged ethical, deviations in this case also cannot be overruled. An entire society can deviate from moral standards; an often cited instance would be that of Nazi Germany (Blackburn, 2003). Having thus notionally untangled ethics from concepts of religion and law and having distinguished ethical values from accepted social norms, we can define it to be two things simultaneously. First, ethics refers to adequate standards of right and wrong that set down codes of character and conduct thereby prescribing what humans ought be as well as what humans ought to do, generally in forms of privileges, rights, duties, benefits to humanity, justice, or certain merits. Ethics, thus, refers to standards of good and bad that motivate refraining from rape, theft, slaughter, assault, libel, and deceit, and practicing of virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. These also establish standards related to fundamental rights, such as those to the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. The consistency and richness of logic embedded in the reasons that support these standards make them adequate (Velasquez et al, 1987). Secondly, ethics also includes in its scope the process of continuous assessment and development of the ethical standards of a person. As already discussed, religion, laws as well as social norms have the possibility of deviating from the ethical thus making it necessary to continually scrutinize ones principles to ascertain that they are indeed reasonable as well as well-founded. Therefore Ethics also refers to the incessant endeavor of assessing one’s individual moral values and beliefs and conduct, and trying to make sure that we, and all that we contribute to, conform to such reasonable and justifiable standards (Velasquez et al, 1987). c) The word "egotism" is a derivative of the Greek term ego that refers to self, and the English suffix “ism”, that is used to denote a certain ideology or philosophy. Egotism can be defined as “an exaggerated sense of self-importance” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009). Egotism leads to making oneself the centre of importance even if at the cost of concerns for others. The effects egotism can have on persuasion depend on the ideology of the related persons in that whether it is the egotist that is trying to persuade or is being persuaded. If an egotist attempts to persuade a non egotist, the final outcome, i.e., the success of the persuasion depends entirely on the merit of the ability of persuasion. However, it is likely that an egotist will place more importance on himself than the issue itself which may make the persuasion ineffective though it is not necessarily so. If it is the egotist that is being persuaded by a non egotist, there is every chance of success if the persuader identifies the person he is attempting to persuade as an egotist. As then, through skillfully placing all importance on the egotist and thereby satisfying him make him susceptible to persuasion. Finally if an egotist acts persuader to another egotist, the persuasion has very little chance of success since both shall place importance on themselves through the course of the interaction thereby displeasing the other and thus eliminating the possibility of persuasion. References: Blackburn, S. (2003) Being Good – A short introduction to ethics, Oxford University Press Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, (2009) "egotism." Merriam-Webster Online, Accessed:12 February 2009 Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, (2009) "law" Merriam-Webster Online, Accessed:12 February 2009 Online Ethics Center for Engineering, (2006) "Chapter 2: What is Ethics? (Section I- A Guide To Teaching the Ethical Dimensions of Science)",National Academy of Engineering Accessed: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Townsend, D., (1998). Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Velasquez, M., Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer (1987) “what is ethics” Issues in Ethics, IIE V1 N1 Read More