Ethical Matters - Research Paper Example

? Ethical Matters The most convincing ethical system is that of realism and anti realism. The fact that ethical values cannot exist independently of human ideas and interaction is the best way to make these values part of our lifestyle. In realism, the audience are able to face the quilt of wrong doing even when they are not spotted. In this sense, every individual is made to recognize the wrong from the right. Anti realism, assumes that if someone makes a mistake, and are not spotted they should be able to own up to their mistakes. The reason why realism and anti realism is the best ethical system is because; it inculcates a sense of responsibility at individual level. Universal ethical principles are necessary to have considering the fact that, every profession in the world have shown that without ethical principles delivering the calling of that profession is not a guarantee. Consider a profession that deals directly with the life of a person. Without ethical principles, anyone in the profession can violate the rights of the citizens. Coming to the world of business, ethics govern back and forth the events pertaining to good business. Universal ethical principles in many occasions are a recipe for good leadership and governance. The legislations of laws governing the human nature in a given country have the spirit of universal ethics manifested in it. Universal ethics serve to bring unity and uniformity among professionals in their line of duty. It further ensures that there is a clear course to be pursued in addressing the needs of the clients. Consider the various professionals in the world, without universal ethics, the so far made technological advances, no one knows; maybe it would have brought disaster to the world. The 1st fundamental principle of ethics is that of respect for autonomy. Everyone has the obligation to respect the decision of others especially if it concerns their lives. This principle goes a long way in shaping a person’s character to the effect that others will appreciate the tolerance they have towards the lifestyle others. The other principle is that of beneficence; every individual has an obligation to bring about good things in whatever they engage in. the third principle is that of nonmaleficence. This principle requires of us not to harm others; and if we cannot avoid the harm, our effort should be to minimize the harm. The last fundamental principle is that of justice; this principle requires of us to accord others whatever is they are rightly owed. In public life for example, we have an obligation to treat all people equally, fairly, and impartially. Therefore, in the case where others are treated unfairly, our obligation therefore, will be to work for the benefit those who are unfairly treated (Adler, 1996) From the works of Plato and Aristotle, good life can be termed as being able to live up to the ethical and moral standards in the society. In order to live morally, one must uphold the spirit of morality, which does not depend on any benefits coming about by being moral. Consider a situation where one lies for self interest; on the contrary, it is expected that everyone can benefit if people accept self denial. People should be able to appreciate their long term interests; this is however not the case, most people subscribe to the austere view that justification of moral principles should be independent of our interests (Devettere, 2002). In doing our duties we should be foster a lifestyle in which virtue should be the only reward to enable us assume no other benefit in doing our duty. To achieve this, people should embrace contend in their lifestyle. More often than not, greed crops in when we are serving others and in the course of event we want to believe that whatever is ours by right is not enough so much, so that we sacrifice what belongs to others. By also embracing the call for duty to serve others, without wanting to mind of what benefits we can get out of it, we can no doubt lead a good life (Adler, 1996) . Ethics can be categorized as natural and learned ethics. Natural ethics are those gained by embracing the human nature and valuing the human process. It is through natural ethics that we are able to understand instinctive needs and respond to appropriately. The flexibility in natural ethics unlike in philosophies is what enables human beings from diverse backgrounds to coexist. This can be termed as a function of moral consciousness or rational conscience. In order to adapt to the needs of the changing social environment, the human nature must have the backing of their conscience. The other category of ethics is the learned ethics; these are ethics that are still through a learning process (Devettere, 2002). According to past philosophers, ethics involves knowing what is expected of you thereby sending the implication that ethics can be taught. Consider a person’s ability to tackle issues, it gets better every other time that person gains some skills; similarly, the ability to exhibit moral discipline grows in stages. Conventionally, a young kid will condemn stealing since it is a punishable act. However, after post conventional stage, whatever a person does is based on what bring cohesion and justice to others. This cannot be possible if the person has not learned to respect and do justice to others (Vogel, 2004). An ethically bad life can be described as that kind of life where the cause of doing things is ill motivated. Consider an example in which governance is marred with corruption of every kind at the expense of economic growth. It is always in the expectation of the citizens to see the candle to burn from the top, which is not the case. When the top leadership in a country fail to condemn the wrong happenings in their midst, the least will be expected of the subjects at the bottom. There are areas in life that are within the concern of every human being; the environmental issue is a responsibility of everyone. If we care less as a cooperate body or individual about the environment we live in, then we are leading an ethically bad life. How leadership in a country sets their priorities in serving its people will help in knowing whether or not we are leading an ethically bad life. Knowing whether you are leading an ethically bad life takes a strong self scrutiny with the help of comments from friends of goodwill. At the point when we leave our core responsibilities to Mother Nature; when we know the laws of the land but yet our lifestyle reflects the direct opposite; at the point when we do not recognize common sense as part of us, at that moment everyone should be able to appreciate that we are leading an ethically bad life. The most common indicator of an ethically bad life is the wide gap between the reach and the poor and more closely related is the high percentage of people living below poverty line compared with few people with wealth (Porter, 2001). In the realm of ethics, what is good before the people is anything that allows them to engage in the activities that they like and in a manner that leads them to the things they value. The line between what is ethically good and bad is so slim. That is to say, what people do is more often, what suits them than what is expected of them. Perhaps, if the consequences of the action are more favorable, the action is deemed good. In a deeper explanation, the concern of good or bad has been personalized by those partaking in the act, so that, if the consequences of their actions favors the other people in the society more than them, then that action is bad; the benefits are so self centered (Vogel, 2004). Consider a more common case of environmental concern, some countries have committed themselves to fight global warming by sacrificing their industries, this is perhaps not the case with other countries, the entire world need a good environment to sustain our needs, however, by other countries defying the call for environmental responsibility just shows how ethics are treated with less seriousness. Ethical actions, apart from the outcomes they can be valued dimensionally according to the impact they have on the stakeholders of these actions. In situations where famine has been witnessed, nongovernmental organizations like the Red Cross have been instrumental in rescuing lives. The value of their being good goes beyond the service they offer, the reputation the organization gains becomes of an enviable kind. It is also important to value something in terms how good it is to the people; were it not for ethics how would life be, so much so that if lives of many people have gotten better with it, then that is the summarized value of the ethical action behind those results. Besides this, ethics has an instrumental value, through ethics as an instrument, one can achieve bigger things. There is also preference value of ethics; this is simply derived from the preference of one thing over the other (Young, 2004). As to whether humans are free or determined leaves, a lot of questions unanswered. This is because, if they were, then they would be aping the spirit of ethical actions in the society. Humans are not free again since the consequence of their participation in industrialization for example, has caused climatic tension all over the world. They are therefore expected to make up for this mess and that is where their determination is much important. Humans are cannot be free when their fellow countrymen are dying of hunger. If sufficiency in all spheres of life can be attained, only then, can man assume partial freedom. Otherwise while still fighting with nature and himself, their determination will be the current parameter (Young, 2004). The relationship between natures and human being is so intimate that it should not be assumed. The main reason behind this is the fact that, human is entirely dependent on nature and so should be upfront in taking good care of it. Countries, which have realized the same, have a more elaborate program that allows human beings to co-exist with nature in a more beneficial manner. Human responsibility draws its perspective from the participation of human beings. In order to ensure that the generations to come will have a good place to live in, all efforts, and hopes rests on the ability of the current man to be responsible. The level to which human beings can be recognized as being responsible is still at infantry. This is so because even the effort of the state and that of the human being is far off below that expected by scientific data. The one basic dispute over ethics is that there is room enough to for anyone to do whatever they want to, without having to be condemned. That is to say “ethical values cannot exist independently of human ideas.” In the recent years, medical practitioners in the United States would help people diagnosed with terminal illness to die slowly. Ethically, there was no provision for such in the code of ethics for medical practitioners. The issue comes in when malicious intentions cripple any profession so that, instead of deliberating on what can build the nation, they start carrying out non ethical practices (Vogel, 2004). The biggest dispute rather is why no one has thought of giving a hand to support the propagation of ethics in the society. Even in the whole world, there are few countries where common sense leads the way of life, and this can be attributed to unethical leadership. The other dispute is “to what?” Alternatively “to whom?” do ethics apply. Ethics apply to the whole society in general. This state, if not well taken care of, result is a state of disowning of the ethical standards of a nation. References Adler, M. J. (1996). The time of our lives: The ethics of common sense. New York, NY: Fordham Univ. Press. Devettere, R. J. (2002). Introduction to virtue ethics: Insights of the ancient Greeks. Washington, D.C: Georgetown Univ. Press. Porter, B. F. (2001). The good life: Alternatives in ethics. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. Vogel, M. H. (2004). An ethical right to life: A formulation from a Buberian diological perspective. Lanham, Md. [u.a.: Hamilton Books. Young, S. J. (2004). Dostoevsky's The idiot and the ethical foundations of narrative: Reading, narrating, scripting. London: Anthem Press. Read More