Ethical Issues in Critical Thinking - Term Paper Example

Ethical issues are the communally accepted ways of how society should behave in a given circumstances. The defined laws and regulation that is generally agreed by the human society can be termed as ethics. For example, it generally agrees that children must respect their parents and the elderly. The elderly must also guide the young ones. When a society fails to follow the generally recommended behavior, they are said to be unethical. For example, it is unethical for a man to walk naked before children (Pojman). Ethical issues are important in critical thinking. Critical thinking can help someone to evaluate himself or herself in the wake to self-realization. Every person is different from the other. There is a unique feature in every person that differentiate him or her from the rest in the society. This uniqueness is the one that can be used to define who a person is and how he or she can live and behave in order to achieve the desired goal in the future. Human beings today are largely shaped by the evolving technology. The technology have been growing every day, and people have appreciated it and used it to enhance their living. Enhancement entails the increase in the life of the people. Enhancement does not only lead to positive transformation of ethics. It has also led to the deterioration of the values considered good in the societal realm. Since the development of technology is global, it have led to the creation of a global village. It has become very easy for a person in one point of the world to communicate with another person in another point, many miles apart, at an affordable price (Cliteur). It therefore implies that people no longer need to travel from one country to another so that they can engage in a conversation. The only thing they need to have is a device for communication. Considering the advancement in technology, the sharing of information have been made easier and increased. Both the scientific innovations and culture can now be transferred from one place to the other, regardless of which continent the parties are. Culture has been prominently transferred from one community to the other. Given that culture is very detrimental in the observing of ethics, the change in culture then implies the change in ethics. People have a tendency of being a victim of influences. The technology have influenced a lot of people in many rounds. They have opted to imitate other people’s cultures. When put in an example, most of the African countries have adopted a lot of the Western culture. For example, African customs did not allow sex before marriage. The western culture did not have any concern on sex before marriage. We get to know that. As a result, of the transfer of technology; it has carried together with it the western culture and now most of the African youths have fallen into what is considered as morally wrong acts. Ethic does not only imply the set regulations followed by an informal community. It also applies to the standards that are set to guide certain professions. For example, doctors have their own code of conducts that guide them in their profession. Teachers too have code of conducts. We, therefore, need to check how certain aspects of life have changed their observing of ethics. In doing research on how technology has influenced ethic, it is possible to take the field of study. We can for example look at the influence of technology on the mode of dressing (Rachels and Rachels). The methodology that we can best use is observation. Therefore, we need to have a past knowledge of dressing in events, occasion and in different fields. For example, the medical practitioners do dress modestly while in the course of their duty. What about when they are away from the duty? According to the codes of conduct in the medical field, doctors should dress in a certain way when they are on duty and also when they are out of duty. Their dressing code should not be influenced by the location or where they are. This is done to ensure that the honor accorded to the doctors is maintained at all levels (Rachels and Rachels). Even though this code of conduct remains valid today, research have shown that the medical doctors do not follow them especially when they are not in duty. This proves that that there have been an influence that have been going around informing the medical professionals that it does not matter what a person do or what they ware. It is what they give to the sick that matters. Secondly, the influence from the celebrities have in great details influenced the way people behave or live and the way they interact with one another. Most of the people will want to be associated with a particular popular celebrity. The lives of celebrities especially those that deals with entertainment do appeal to most of the youths. For example, if a particular musician performs wearing a particular fashioned cloth, his or her fans will copy what he or she was wearing. They will also tend to copy even the hairstyle, the shoes and many other features. Therefore, the power of influence may be so great that it may exceed the power of the professional ethics. It, therefore, seems to be like a generally agreed way. Focusing on how the entertainment industry has led to a change in the code of conducts not only to the medical staffs but also to other professions, there is the loss of the professional etiquette as a result of a change in culture. The self-realization of those who are looking to excel in different professions get lost. The value changes of persons in terms of turning to unethical behaviors is what contributes the core themes. In identifying someone core themes, it is important to focus on the persons’ childhood. This childhood knowledge is important as it builds a foundation on how the child was brought up. In bringing up a child, it is obvious that we need to know about the person under study family history, his or her parents and siblings. Children are in many cases tend to copy what their family members do. In other words, the immediate family members are seen as the role models of by their young ones. Therefore, self-discovery is best traced back to the childhood. The adolescent stage is another important stage that can be used to trace a person in terms of the core themes. At this stage, the young youths get a lot of influence from friends. It is at this stage they stage to be identified with a particular celebrity either in the music world or the acting world. They also learn a lot in schools and, therefore, starts to trace their future professions. They also get a lot of cancelling from their parents and relatives. This is because there are many dangers associated with this stage since their bodies begins to be very active emotionally. In order to have an in-depth understanding of a person and, therefore, formulate a better way of helping him or her to reach a self-realization, it is better we administer a questionnaire to the person. A questionnaire is a written interview or questions that are administered to a person or group under the study. These questions may be very direct and needs an answer yes, or no. they may also contain some few questions that are open, and they give the person under the interview room to elaborate his or her answer or opinion. The questionnaires give a good platform for a person to give some details about themselves. These type of research covers a wide range of the interviewee profiles. The areas covered may include the interest profile. To guide a person to realize his or herself in terms of future professions, we need to know what the person likes to do. For example, if a boy likes to play football than any other game, he may have a footballing talent, and if proper assistance is accorded to him, he may grow up to be a professional footballer. If a certain young girl becomes a leader in class or in a group discussion, she may end up growing to be a very good community leader. The interest profile is thus important in helping the person under the study to realize what he or she may want to be in the future. Secondly, we need to know a person’s abilities and aptitude. Ability may be used to trace what the person can do effectively, without any difficulty. On the other hand, aptitude may be used to mean the things that the person is willing to study from time to time. Given that we are concerned with establishing the person to face the future and that he or she may not be influenced by the world, it is necessary for him or her to enter into the field that he or she may hold on to the ethics associated with that field. Therefore, ability and aptitude may be of very big help in establishing someone in a profession. It is also important that the person have skills, understanding and the necessary experience to undertake a good study. Different skills are required in the essence of handling different professions. The teacher is required to have some skills that are necessary when teaching. These skills may be different from those that are required by a nurse or a businessperson. Knowledge is also a vital as it helps someone understand the in-depth of the profession that he or she needs to join. In addition, there is a need to have a little experience in the field. It also requires that a person have the know-how of the personal and professional values associated with a certain professional field. This knowledge may help a person to have adequate mental preparation as he or she plans to get into the profession. It will be very beneficial for a person to have this knowledge for it will help him, or her maintain the core values that must be observed in the course of the profession. It is endorsed that the person should have adequate intelligence when handling people who are too emotional. Different fields of professions have a different thing that may make a person interested in making a profession quit. For example, a person who is willing to become a professional doctor needs to have a way of handling the sick without the fear that he or she will feel sorry for the sick and start crying. It is advisable that he or she know how to avoid such circumstances. When trying to trace what a person can be in the future, it is important we know what he or she fears most and what makes that person sad or happy (Katsicas and Sokratis). Lastly, we need to come up with the items that usually makes a person feel motivated. These may be the aspects that usually encourages the person feel encouraged when performing a particular activity. It may include such things as the hobbies of the person. We may also try to ask the motivational factors that make that person feel that these is the best field that he or she want to get established into it. These data collected from the person in the interest of wanting to realize himself or herself in terms of career progression, and the observance of the professional ethics encompasses both the objective and subjective data. These data gives the scientific researcher a foundation to work on the self-realization of the person. This work now become very easy as the research now have the strength and the weaknesses of the person (Rachels and Rachels). A person may be required to go into deeper detailing of what he or she is if the researcher still wants to have more details about this person. He or she may be required to write about two essays elaborating on two major activities that the scientists may see important. This is done after the elaborate and insightful judgment made from a previously collected data. After this stage, the philosopher may come up with core themes that may seem fit for the person. For a person to be given the final results, it is required that he or she be companied by the family members. The role of the family members is to listen carefully at the instruction given to one of their own and make sure that they do implement every detail they get. They are also made available for they still have a major role to play before the person under the study reaches the heights of being a self-reliant person. They still need to pay for his college fees and other bills that may be incurred as the person pursue to have self-knowledge and the core themes. The methodology that have been used to have been criticized strongly because the author did not makes a clear distinction between ethics and morality. There is a very big different between ethics and morality. Ethics implies the set standards that are supposed to be followed when conducting yourself in various situations. Morality, on the other hand, implies those conducts that are seen as best when performed all across the generations (Stuart). When looking at some things he has discussed in his book such as the Wrongfulness of Euthanasia, The New Eugenics, Human Cloning and the Challenges of Regulation, Selling organs for transplantation, we found out that he classifies them as vices. This means that they are unethical and immoral. But we know that this activities are done so that they can enhance the living standards of human beings. These activities have undergone a serious scientific research and they have been proven right. Although they have some little negative effects, their advantages supposes the demerits. We can therefore suggest that the author uses his emotional feelings to bring out his thoughts. In the essence of a person rediscovering himself or herself, the author outlines a specific guideline that may be used to help someone to get the core themes. When looked through the scientific lens, we may find out that the author have designed a specific formula when trying to help the person. As we know through experience, these guidelines may not help the person especially if the person lied while filling the questionnaire. He does not give an alternative that can be used when the provided guidelines fails to work. It is necessary to have said that this procedure need not to be rigid for various person may respond differently. Self-actualization is very important when trying to find out our core themes. It is important that scientists invest adequately on core themes and core values. We need to create a society that have a full knowledge of what is expected on them as they undertake their daily activities and as they prepare to act for the future. Work Cited Cliteur, Paul. The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism; Blackwell Public Philosophy Series. new york: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Katsicas and Sokratis. Computer and Information Security Handbook. Elsevier: Morgan Kaufmann Publications, 2009. Pojman, Louis P. Moral Philosophy: A Reader (Third Edition). amazon: Hackett, 2003. Rachels, James and Stuart Rachels. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. New york: McGraw-Hill, 1986. Stuart, Rachels. The Legacy of Socrates: Essays in Moral Philosophy. Colombia: Columbia University Press, 2007. Print. Read More