I believe that people need good ethics to promote a healthy and positive environment for ourselves and others. I always assumed my personal ethical viewpoint is that everything should be equal and fair. After reviewing my Ethical Lens Inventory, it proved me right. I found that my preferred ethical lens is the Relationship Lens. I use my rationality to determine how I can ensure equality to all others.
While Socrates arguments may be sound in his opinion, I'm not sure if I agree with them. Just because of the good laws of the state benefited Socrates and helped him in his upbringing, it doesn't mean that he has to remain completely loyal to them for his entire life. His main point about never returning an unjust act with another makes sense to a degree, but only if you agree with his view that the soul is the only thing that matters and not the body. While I understand that point, I don' think every unjust act ruins the soul. Some acts such as telling a white lie in some situations are
I think is a plausible idea since you cannot give what you do not have. For example, a blind man cannot help another blind man to cross the road. It is very important to note here that before you help anyone, you must be capable of helping. In short, Peter Singer’s analysis that, “we ought to prevent evil whenever we can do so without sacrificing something of comparable moral significance” is uncompromisingly convincing and the pragmatic use of this conclusion would help have better human relations.
People also have the ability to think morally for themselves so morality is relative to someone’s point of view. The main point favoring the cultural relativism argument is that if there are no moral principles, then the principles can only be relative to culture. If someone were to express their opinion about the morals of a culture that they didn’t agree with, including what the culture already believed to be right, then that person would lose the argument without any question. This can be easily disproved because in one culture, not every person is going to have the same moral judgments about what is right or wrong and people can establish objective moral principles. A culture also can’t think of them as having the power to decide which is right and
Perhaps more so than Emotivists, Prescriptivists see ethical language as fairly meaningful. They believe that the terms used are able to create absolute rules that everyone ought to follow. It would seem that ethical language is seen by many as very meaningful, although for varying reasons. However agent centred theories such as Virtue Ethics would argue that our main focus of morality should be on becoming as virtuous as possible, rather than deciding what is meant by ethical language. Therefore it would seem that perhaps morality should be more focussed on individuals’ actions rather then defining what is meant by ‘good’ and
The state of birth, suffering, love, and death are extreme states—extreme, universal, and inescapable. We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge. It is for this reason that all societies have battled with the incorrigible disturber of the peace—the artist. I doubt that future societies will get on with him any better.
This just means that the act is correct as long as it brings happiness to the greatest amount of people. Sidgwick and Bentham believed in similar views and are seen as act utilitarians. Act utilitarianism is when you have to decide what action would bring about the greatest good so it depends on the consequences of the action so the rightness or wrongness of something can be changed. Rule utilitarianism believes that rules should be created by using utilitarian principles
Integrity means being trustworthy, reliable, and decent in our dealings with others. It means being true to ourselves. When we are guided by integrity our actions align with our principles; our thoughts and words are in sync with each other. It becomes the basis for our reputation as well as our self-esteem. Integrity does not mean being perfect, but rather having high moral principles and being trusted in our actions as well as our words.
In order to make someone else happy, you must be happy with yourself. Life’s choices, treatment of others should be made with the best of intentions and cause no harm to others. Scalet and Arthur (2014) have suggested the quality of life is determined by activities and that a happy person will never do what is hateful and mean but will live life with dignity and always do what is best. Kant’s theory suggests that actions determine morality and one must not only act in accordance to duty but for the sake of
The myth is created by the following misconceptions about ethics: 1. The general conception that ethics is an ideal system, which is all very noble in theory but no good in practice. 2. Ethics is inapplicable to the real world or to one’s professional life. Because ethics is a system of short and simple rules like ‘Do not lie’, ‘Do not kill’ and ‘Do not steal’, this prompts that ethics is not suited to complexities of life.