Here's something you might be interested in.
it's interesting to find that the source material i used for this blog was on a free site for essays and term papers
Ethics We have many premium term papers and essays on Ethics. We also have a wide variety of research papers and book reports available to you for free. You can browse our collection of term papers or use our search engine.
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Ethics/251898
so i guess that blows any idea that the material i used was not in the public domain
ethics is much in the news lately...but what does ethics REALLY mean and not mean
many of the blogs Don Bauder publishes here have everything to do with Ethics
thank you Don for the platforms you create where all can discuss the relevance of the matters at hand
much of the conflict we see there among the commenter's have some confusion in Ethical thinking...it keeps us from being unified...keeps us from being able to sort thru the issues and see clearly where and why Ethics should be included in seeing the issues clearly
we also see the slight hesitation to speak out of fear that "powers that be" will take action
decide for yourselves what that may mean
it usually means in some way or another money will be routed in a new direction that doesn't include you
and freedom of speech from all interested parties is hindered
Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?"
Among their replies were the following:
"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."
"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."
"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."
"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."
"I don't know what the word means."
These replies might be typical of our own.
The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.
Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right.
In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.
Nor should one identify ethics with religion.
Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint.
Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior.
Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.
Being ethical is also not the same as following the law.
The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.
Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts."
In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.
Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts.
To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.
What, then, is ethics?
Ethics is two things
. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do
usually in terms of rights,obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues
Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud
Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.
And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights
such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy
Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons
Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards.
feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical
.So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded
Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs
our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.
as others have commented with personal situations i decided to tell one of my lessons in Ethics
many years ago i was working at University of California at Irvine's hospital...i'd been hired on in a casual status
after a year of employment i would be a permanent employee or let go...another returning UC employee was hired on the same day as me also in a casual status
however at the end of that year she would be made permanent before me as she had seniority since she had worked there before
that year went quickly and i was thrilled to receive word that i'd been made permanent...the next time i saw my co-worker Margie i congratulated her on her now permanent status...her face fell..she had not been made permanent and she was crestfallen
one evening i asked my shift coordinator about it
"hey Tom..i'm thrill to be permanent now...but how come Margie didn't get it first"
because she's pregnant" he said "and UC doesn't want to pay her 3 months of maternity leave plus replace her with someone while she's gone..she won' have health benefits either so the hospital saves money there too
"but they'll make her permanent after she comes back from her Maternity Leave"
of course Margie didn't know any of that
and truthfully i wasn't going to tell her that...even tho i thought it was grossly unfair on UC's part
about a month later Margie came to visit with our Union Rep...who had been trying to get UC to change their decision...and the inevitable question came up...did i have any idea why i'd been made permanent first
i could have lied...could have avoided the question...done any number of things to put them off the scent...but i didn't...it wouldn't have been Ethical
so i told the truth...ended up being lied about by the powers to be and eventually fired over the situation...Margie and i appeared together at the Unemployment Department to appeal the fact we'd been denied unemployment
i won't bore u with the details but eventually The California State Labor Board arbitrated our cases and we were both made permanent..paid all monies that we would have received if we'd been working and our slates were wiped cleaned and UC had to hire us back
UC was fined heavily for their misbehavior and that was that
i was out of work for a year...Margie was as well...the Unions standing went up by leaps and bounds...because 2 women had stood up against the machine
it was a true test of my morality..and i still consider it a sorta "my shining hour" ...hahahahahaha
i only worked at UC another year...and spent a great deal of time as a Union Rep..
i learn a lot that year...about true friendship and having to put your money where ur mouth is
oh the part i didn't tell ya was that i was raising 5 kids at the time
it's interesting to find that the source material i used for this blog was on a free site for essays and term papers
Ethics We have many premium term papers and essays on Ethics. We also have a wide variety of research papers and book reports available to you for free. You can browse our collection of term papers or use our search engine.
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Ethics/251898
so i guess that blows any idea that the material i used was not in the public domain
ethics is much in the news lately...but what does ethics REALLY mean and not mean
many of the blogs Don Bauder publishes here have everything to do with Ethics
thank you Don for the platforms you create where all can discuss the relevance of the matters at hand
much of the conflict we see there among the commenter's have some confusion in Ethical thinking...it keeps us from being unified...keeps us from being able to sort thru the issues and see clearly where and why Ethics should be included in seeing the issues clearly
we also see the slight hesitation to speak out of fear that "powers that be" will take action
decide for yourselves what that may mean
it usually means in some way or another money will be routed in a new direction that doesn't include you
and freedom of speech from all interested parties is hindered
Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?"
Among their replies were the following:
"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."
"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."
"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."
"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."
"I don't know what the word means."
These replies might be typical of our own.
The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.
Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right.
In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.
Nor should one identify ethics with religion.
Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint.
Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior.
Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.
Being ethical is also not the same as following the law.
The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.
Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts."
In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.
Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts.
To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.
What, then, is ethics?
Ethics is two things
. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do
usually in terms of rights,obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues
Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud
Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.
And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights
such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy
Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons
Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards.
feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical
.So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded
Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs
our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.
as others have commented with personal situations i decided to tell one of my lessons in Ethics
many years ago i was working at University of California at Irvine's hospital...i'd been hired on in a casual status
after a year of employment i would be a permanent employee or let go...another returning UC employee was hired on the same day as me also in a casual status
however at the end of that year she would be made permanent before me as she had seniority since she had worked there before
that year went quickly and i was thrilled to receive word that i'd been made permanent...the next time i saw my co-worker Margie i congratulated her on her now permanent status...her face fell..she had not been made permanent and she was crestfallen
one evening i asked my shift coordinator about it
"hey Tom..i'm thrill to be permanent now...but how come Margie didn't get it first"
because she's pregnant" he said "and UC doesn't want to pay her 3 months of maternity leave plus replace her with someone while she's gone..she won' have health benefits either so the hospital saves money there too
"but they'll make her permanent after she comes back from her Maternity Leave"
of course Margie didn't know any of that
and truthfully i wasn't going to tell her that...even tho i thought it was grossly unfair on UC's part
about a month later Margie came to visit with our Union Rep...who had been trying to get UC to change their decision...and the inevitable question came up...did i have any idea why i'd been made permanent first
i could have lied...could have avoided the question...done any number of things to put them off the scent...but i didn't...it wouldn't have been Ethical
so i told the truth...ended up being lied about by the powers to be and eventually fired over the situation...Margie and i appeared together at the Unemployment Department to appeal the fact we'd been denied unemployment
i won't bore u with the details but eventually The California State Labor Board arbitrated our cases and we were both made permanent..paid all monies that we would have received if we'd been working and our slates were wiped cleaned and UC had to hire us back
UC was fined heavily for their misbehavior and that was that
i was out of work for a year...Margie was as well...the Unions standing went up by leaps and bounds...because 2 women had stood up against the machine
it was a true test of my morality..and i still consider it a sorta "my shining hour" ...hahahahahaha
i only worked at UC another year...and spent a great deal of time as a Union Rep..
i learn a lot that year...about true friendship and having to put your money where ur mouth is
oh the part i didn't tell ya was that i was raising 5 kids at the time