Critical Thinking

Ethics Awareness Inventory Paper

In today’s world everything is mostly based off ethics. Ethics to me is basically about your character. I feel that you should pick someone to work that will be fair all around the board. But you have to understand that I am a person who takes your character serious. If the person has a good character they are most likely going to make the right decision. You also have to really look at the person and make sure that they are capable inside and out. The categories of ethical perspectives presented here may not exactly coincide with those you may have seen elsewhere.

A person’s ethics is the moral standard that a person uses in choices of what is right or wrong. Not all choices are ethical ones. Many solutions are known or can be tested through and accepted formalized logical system, such as mathematics or scientific methods; Derived from the Greek word- ethos, meaning “character”, and ethics is “our character”. It is how we judge our other choices regarding behavior to one another. Ethics applies to social action, the rightness of which can be tested only by knowing the standards that is applied. Ethics also applies to choice, so the absence of any ability or opportunity to make a choice argues that behavior that is compelled or made in ignorance may not fit the notion of ethical behavior. Although we not be aware of them when we make choices there are competing standards, or ethical perspective that govern people’s behavior (guru).

The deontological perspective is sometimes stated simply as: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The root word deon is from the Greek meaning "obligation" or "commitment". The philosophical theory of deontology is formalized in the writing of Immanuel Kant in the early 1800's. Kant identified that the basis of ethics is the obligation, or the duty, to do what is "right". What is "right" comes from an idealized notion of what a better world ought to be. The duty to make this a better world is something we take upon ourselves. Kant agrees that not everyone in all cases is capable of this. And, in certain circumstances there may be a compulsion to act otherwise. But, if you ask, "What is the 'right' thing to do?” imagine the world or the circumstance as it should be. Then, act on the merits of this Ideal. By raising the very question is an action or decision "right", "good" or "bad", we raise the question whether it is something we are willing to do, irrespective of the number of others who may do it.” Kant termed the Ideals that people share about how people ought to behave a "categorical imperative" - a transcendent concept of "rightness of action" that is accessible to anyone who thinks about the world as it ought to be, our place in the world to foster this ideal, and our relationship with others that helps to create the world as it ought to be” (guru).

To many religious people this will sound like "theology", but deontology as a field of ethics attempts to forge a concept of "right" that is more universal than a religion. Telling the truth, for example, is a moral obligation, not because it may be instructed by religion. Truth telling is a duty because we understand what it is like to be lied to. We can imagine that universally others share this dislike of being lied to. Falsehoods create distrust, undermine relationships, and if acted on, can lead to disaster. To the deontologists, this is not a utilitarian value - tell the truth only when it serves "good" purposes. To deontology, truthfulness is simply "right" as an ideal; and, we assume the obligation to commit to the Ideal as something of value in, and of itself. We opt to tell the truth because we understand that it is the "right" thing to do.

Virtue is a disposition or a tendency to act in a specific way or do what is right. It is a habit, an inner motivation manifesting itself through outward conduct. The basis of our virtue ethic comes from both Greek and Biblical influences. The Bible places more weight on virtue than on the rules of conduct. Up until the modern era, the history of ethics gave equal weight to both virtue and conduct. Plato studied virtues such as courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice. Aquinas later added the virtues of love, faith, and hope. Aristotle looked at the weakness of the will