How can we know, if at all, that our behavior is ethical? Essay

As human beings, how do we recognize that our actions towards ourselves, our surroundings, and to others around us are ethical? For instance, a student is caught cheating on a test in school. Why is this pupil punished for what they have done, and how do they know their actions were right or wrong? Ethics, as described by Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, is the â€Å"science of human duty; a particular system of principles and rules concerting duty, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to a single class of human actions; as, political or social ethics; medical ethics.† This means that ethics are what we, as humans consider right or wrong and are formed by the morals that each of us individually believe and abide by. We can find human ethics in the judicial law system, religion, and in our everyday society throughout the entire world population. Individuals in a civilized group follow judicial laws. These laws outline what we can and cannot do. Our leaders have created these laws parallel to the daily changes that humans experience in society. When these changes occur, they conclusively affect humans, resulting in new changes in the judicial law system as well. In such a case, many years ago it was thought that child labour was ethical because children were seen just as miniature adults who could accomplish the same workload as a grown man or woman. Today we realize that this is not the case, and view child labour as being unethical. As a result, laws have been made in order to protect children from being immersed in our labour force. We know through science of the mind and body, that child labour directly effects the psychological development of children. Children are not fully physiologically developed to work as hard nor for as long as grown adults can. In response to the increase in our knowledge of such resembling situations, judicial laws are also changed to follow the development of human ethics. When judicial laws and ethics are not followed, punishments serve to teach the prosecuted what is ethical and what is not. If you break a law such as killing another person, you will be tried and jailed on the lawful account of murder. T he majority of the punished will hopefully realize that what they have done is unethical, and that it should definitely not be done again. Humanitarian laws have been created as a practical (and peaceful) guide to daily living. Therefore, punishments are given to individuals who do not wish to abide by these guidelines in an attempt to change the way that they have acted in their past. In faith and religion, there are many different ethical laws that have been set since the beginning of the respective organization. These laws vary between religions and countries. In the Christian religion there are the Ten Commandments, which followers try to live by. These commandments set by God are the ethics on which the Christians should live. Humans decide which religion they wish to believe in, and in by doing so, they decide what ethics and actions are correct for them to follow. Though many of these ethics have been set a long time ago, we can still decide what we wish to follow, and what we wish to rule out. In the Islam faith, followers find ethics by what is written in the Quarn. Christians find their religious ethics through the Bibles. Such scriptures serve as religious guidelines, outlining how to morally live and act in certain situations. There are many different religions in the world, yet each and every one of them offer specific guidelines of morals and human ethics to teach the rights from the wrongs. If these ethics and behaviors are not followed, the individual will be punished. If you commit an action that goes so strongly against the ethical laws and behaviors set by your religion, results of punishment could be that; your family or religious group may shun you, or in an even worse case, you could be jailed for certain periods of time. The results are all determined by specific factors such as the specific religion, the country, and crime committed. There are many serious prices to pay for breaking the moral laws of human and religious ethics. Within society, there are unspoken and unwritten rules, that we see as ethical, by which every citizen and human being should abide. Along with these rules, we find moral obligation of considerations of what is right and wrong and this determines how people act. Such ethical laws are changed overtime because of the influence that certain individual’s actions have on society. In some cases, these actions can change our ethics making the formerly wrong actions eventually accepted by society. An example of this is how women’s fashion has changed over the last century. Seventy years ago it was unacceptable for women to show any skin above their ankles while wearing a dress. Today in Canada, we are able to se females who wear skirts and shorts without a second thought, making this action fully accepted by their surrounding society. Because of instances such as this, people follow society and views what it accepts as ethical. What may be ethical and acceptable in one part of the world may not be acceptable in another. This is judged on what the majority of the people do, and on what their religious and cultural beliefs are. In most professions, such as medicine and dentistry, there is a code of conduct, which practitioners must follow. This code of conduct is built on what society accepts as being ethical in that certain field. Humans must be mentally aware of society’s unwritten rules. These rules should come easily to all mentally stable humans, for they are based on the way individuals are raised and the morals that result from proper parental nourishment. Not following the ethics and behaving in a manner which society deems wrong can punish an individual through public or social groups. In professions where there is a code of conduct and it is broken, you could be finned or suspended from that profession. As well, your family and friends could lose your trust or respect and your image and reputation could be damaged. In the world around us there are three major parts of ethics; judicial law, religion, and the mass of moral, unwritten in our surrounding society. In each, ethical laws determine whether individual actions and behaviors are right or wrong, and outline certain punishments for breaking the ‘rules’. These punishments are given according to the severity of the crime, and religious and social, religious, and cultural belies. We base our ethics on the norms around us and how others and we ourselves act. Therefore we, as individuals, are in fact the ones who decide what actions and behaviors are ethical, morally determining our own providence.