How Ethics Provides a Standard for the Recourses of Action in the World - Assignment Example

It is undeniable that ethical matters have been subjected to debates for quite a long time. To a certain extent, the very term ‘ethics’ has been contested since man has started vying for supremacy against other beings and their fellow kind. Morality comes with it in most cases. In this paper, I shall assess how ethics provides a standard for the recourses of action in the globalized, hybrid and borderless world. The three aforementioned contexts shall serve as a standard in delineating their effect on ethical choice or acts. In the era of the contemporary world, one cannot deny that globalization has been the dominating force in order to exert influence and control over other countries and groups of people. To a certain, the universality cause of globalization can gravely deform the concept of universal ethics. Kant purported that universal ethics is something that is generally agreed upon by people due to its principles being applicable to almost everyone (Gregor 1998, p. 47). If carefully scrutinize, the globalized condition of the 21th century indeed distorts the universal ethics due to an imposition of a certain standard to make it universal. Thus, it can detrimentally devalue the universality of ethical principles. To a certain extent, it can be analyzed that the universal ethics becomes an imposed universal ethics. Why is this possible? This happens due to cultural complications that come with globalization as a phenomenon. The ethical question that one must assess is that is it reasonable to impose new cultural conventions, ‘under the banner of one world, one culture’, to achieve the universality being aspired for (Steger 2003)? There are several issues that will definitely come here. Other people chose to comply with the standards imposed by globalization due to the benefits it can offer them as of the moment. However, it is costly given that one must give up certain conventions just to accommodate the latest trend in the world. The trend becomes a standard for universality in this case. Is this ethical? Yes, for globalized trends of the 21st century. However, for those countries that have so much primacy on their culture, how are they assured of them preserving their innate cultural values and attitudes, which can be considered universal and morally correct for them? Thus, it can be considered ethically wrong but due to conditioning of the people’s mindset about what is acceptable and ethical, the incursion of globalized conventions deforms the universal ethics. Analytically, universal ethics has become a globalized universal ethics. This follows the attitude of conquering that can be considered as restructured. The wrong incursion becomes correct due to a recalibration to fit the fast – changing contexts of the contemporary period. It is inevitable that the universal ethics is modified even in principles; they have been correct and true. Ethics, in the face of the contemporary period or the twentieth century, can be considered a hybrid: combination of intrinsic universalities amongst culture and globalizations imposed conventions across cultures. This has been considered as a natural phenomenon due to the attempt to control and dominate the world by the control of a certain superpower (Steger 2003, p. 116). Hybrid cultures can be considered results of presupposed moral ethical impositions. Most of these cultures existence have become pivotal due to its need to accommodate for the sake progress and benefits offered by globalization. Nonetheless, even if hybridity is a result of unethical intervention, it still becomes a powerful force in defining ethical standards (Papastergiadis 2005, p. 45). Hybridity, which is strongly dependent on culture as a force, is a determiner of how one must act, do or comply. It still conditions things in a particular manner that is both universal ethics and globalized ethics in a certain sense. However, it is important that the new ethics can be confined to premises of each alone. It exists on its own and becomes a way for people to live out lives in a morally, upright and decent manner (Gregor 1998, p. 56). In this case, even if hybrids are products of the mixing of traditional and global cultures, which brings ethics with it, is still capable of being flawed. One cannot deny that ethics are constantly changing as well. This needs to be so since the changes that a certain society or group of people encounters cannot be consistent and uniform. It is varied and unpredictable even if it can be considered dependent to those who control the global cultural arena (Steger 2003, p. 116). If analyzed further, ethics, in its universality, still depends on the principles that change. Thus, principles become the main cause of the changes whether it can be considered ethical on the personal level and social level. It also carries detrimental standards given that things in society are structured in relatively oppositional planes. Borderless also applies to ethics since it has destroyed the boundaries of cultures among different groups of people and nations. Is it morally correct to force everyone in to progress at the expense of loss of tradition? Is it ethical for recipients to accommodate a new cultural complication regarding globalization? Is it really important to keep the traditions and progress on one’s own accord? All of these questions definitely have their moral implications, which varies accordingly to the perception and take of the people who will be affected by it. Nonetheless, things, on an ethical level, must be dealt with in its full complexity and practicability. To end the matter on ethics in the 21st century, it is worthwhile to look how the universal principles are applicable, used and assessed by people even if there are different beliefs, ideals and aspiration deemed fit to their cultural sensibilities. War has been the most common occurrence where ethics are gravely challenged. This is where people, no matter how bloody and treacherous the battlefield, will still know how to treat normal people and enemies properly (Coker 16). Maybe the modern form will be battle against terrorism. Nevertheless, people must know how delineate minorities, civilians and enemies; especially those who are in the battlefield. It is a matter of treating humans properly and humanely. That is the universally ethical thing to do. At the same time, globalization does not mess with it. People just need to learn to be sensitive to judge things properly in a world where ethics are threatened. REFERENCES Coker, C. (2008). Ethics and War in the 21st Century. London: Routledge Gregor, M. (1998). Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals. London: Cambridge University Press Papastergiadis, N. (2005). Hybridity and Ambivalence. Theory, Culture and Society, 22(39), 39 - 64. Steger, M. (2003). Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. London: Oxford University Press. Read More