"It was said, a countryman possessed a goose that laid golden eggs. Each day he visited the nest, took the egg to the marketplace, and soon began to get rich. Before long he grew impatient with the goose because she gave him only a single egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough. He became greedy and wanted the profit at once, so he kills the goose expecting to discover gold inside it. But when he cuts it open, there were no golden eggs. In the end, he loses the animal he killed and its daily gift," said Wulansari—Sundanese, meaning a beautiful moon—when she arrived and radiated her beauty, after saying Basmalah and greeting with Salaam.
"No passion can be a greater torment to those who are led by insatiable covetousness. It makes men blind to their present happiness. Men who give themselves up to this propensity, know not how to be contented with the constant and continued sufficiency. Their minds are haunted with the prospect of becoming rich," Wulansari went on. "The core elements of human morality (the principles of good and bad behavior; right and wrong) are universal. Ethics remains relevant to everyday life today because the fundamental issues involved in human interactions in society are the same no matter where or when people interact.
History credits Theodore Roosevelt with saying that 'to educate a man in mind, but not in morals is to create a menace to society.' Everyone encounters ethical dilemmas in his or her personal and professional lives; the question is whether they are ready for them when they do.
The term ethics means the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct. The Greek root for ethics is ethos, which emphasizes the perfection of the individual and the community in which he or she is defined. Nearly all educated people acknowledge the importance of ethics. So, what then is ethics about? Aric W. Dutelle and Randy S. Taylor mention that ethics is about:
Right and Wrong: 'We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.'
Virtue and Vice: 'Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to.'
Benefit and Harm: 'The two essential ingredients in the sentiment of justice are the desire to punish a person who has done harm, and the knowledge or belief that there is some definite individual or individuals to whom harm has been done.'
Universal Rules of Conduct: 'Ethics encompasses fixed, universal rules of right conduct that are contingent on neither time nor culture nor circumstance.'
Character: Ethics is entwined within ones character, 'the traits, qualities, and established reputation that define who one is and what one stands for in the eyes of others.'
Providing an Example: Ethics is founded upon 'an established pattern of conduct worthy of emulation.'
Morals, Values, and Ethics are three different words. The word morality originates from the Latin word moralis, which means 'traditional customs or proper behavior.' Therefore, fundamentally, morals refer to a set of rules defining what is considered to be right or wrong. These rules are defined by (although not typically written down or 'defined' by writing) and accepted by a group or society. The group or society can include peers, educators, religion, media, and the family unit. If someone within the group or society breaks one of the rules, then they are typically considered to have been 'bad' or 'immoral.' Morality describes what is. Ethics describes what ought to be.
Values, on the other hand, provide direction in the determination of right versus wrong or good versus bad. Values are what an individual believes to have worth and importance, or to be valuable. As such, morals are values that an individual attributes to a system of beliefs that assist the individual in defining right from wrong or good from bad.
Ethics, which has as its core the Greek word ethos, refers to the 'moral character of an individual.' The Greeks believed that ethos included an emphasis on an individual’s character as well as including the citizen as a component of a greater community. At the core, this seems an easy beginning; that ethics begins with the individual.
Ethics involves attempting to address questions as to how a moral outcome can be achieved. This is sometimes referred to as 'applied ethics.' Dutelle and Taylor divide the study of ethics into three areas:
Normative ethics: How moral values should be determined. (What do individuals think is right?)
Descriptive ethics: What morals are actually followed or adhered to. (How should individuals act?)
Meta-ethics: The fundamental nature of ethics, including whether it has an objective justification, how individuals determine for themselves what societal norms to follow. (What does it mean to be 'right'?)
Morals and ethics should be distinguished from law as well. Simply because something is legally permissible does not mean that it is morally and ethically permissible. This is the fundamental argument around the debates surrounding abortion, medical marijuana, child labor, capital punishment, and many others. And, just as legality does not suggest morality, illegality does not imply immorality.
There are decisions, choices, and considerations that may be moral, ethical, or legal, or that may be combinations of them. An action or decision can be ethically right, morally wrong, and legally neutral. An example of this would be the following: Mike likes to eat red meat. The location where Mike lives frowns on its citizens eating red meat. It is not illegal, just socially unacceptable. Since there is a moral tenet in place, which essentially forbids eating red meat, doing so is thus viewed as immoral ('wrong'). However, since the behavior of Mike does not affect any other person directly, it is viewed as ethically neutral by others, but as 'right' by Mike. Since there is no law that exists making the eating of red meat illegal, doing so is legally neutral.
But what about homicide? There are various categories of homicide: excusable homicide, justifiable homicide, murder, etc. Not all choices that one makes are ethical ones. For instance, the choice of '2' or '3' in deciding the correct answer to the problem of 'what is 1 + 1?' is not at all an ethical one. Nor is deciding the answer to: 'How far away is the Earth from the sun?' A great many decisions are made as a result of testing, through a logical, methodological system, such as mathematics and science. Other times, math and science are of no use in the decision-making process and one must delve deeper in order to come up with the 'right' solution to the problem at hand. When the choice to be made is between what is clearly right and clearly wrong, a decision as to what to do is essentially one of moral courage, rather than an ethical dilemma. An ethical man knows he should not steal, whereas a moral man would not steal.
However, there are additional factors that may serve as an impetus for ethical decision making. These factors may include, but are not limited to, family, friends, profession, religion, community, culture, and law. It is these factors, combined with one’s personal bias, that impact an individual’s concept of right and wrong, and, thus, impact the ethical decision-making process.
A determination of what to do in a given situation is more difficult when the choices are closer to shades of gray as to right and wrong or between competing rights (virtues). Such a quandary would be what is referred to as an ethical dilemma. An ethical dilemma is a situation in which one is faced with choosing between competing virtues that are considered equally important, but which cannot be simultaneously honored.
So, if one is truly confronted with an ethical dilemma, rather than a decision between what is ethical and what is moral, then perhaps an ethical dilemma is best described as a decision between two competing rights, or a 'right versus right' conflict. Therefore, It is important for one to understand the decision-making process if one is to evaluate whether or not a decision is an ethical or unethical one.
There is more to ethics than simply knowing what it is about. It is just as important to know what is involved in its makeup. Ethics is the way values are practiced. As such, it is both a process of inquiry (deciding how to decide) and a code of conduct (a set of standards governing behavior).
To think well is to think critically. Critical thinking, the conscious use of reason, stands clearly apart from other ways of grasping truth or confronting choice: impulse, habit, etc. Impulse is nothing more than an unreflective spontaneity, a mind on autopilot. Habit on the other hand is programmed repetition. This is akin to muscle memory, except as applies to behavior. Repetition is habitual. Therefore, 'the object of critical thinking is to achieve a measure of objectivity to counteract or diminish the subjective bias that experience and socialization bestow on us all.'
Ethical foundation begins with the individual. While simplistic in nature, it is this issue that also is the starting point for the complications and travesties relating to ethics in public service, the fact that it all begins with an individual. An agency or organization cannot have ethics; it is its employees who have ethics. It is the administration that makes ethical decisions. The upside is that the majority of people desire to be ethical, most organizations desire to act ethically, and the majority of employees and organizations desire to be treated ethically. The downside to this is that a great many individuals and organizations simply are not proficient at the application of shared values, or group ethics, to the process of decision making. The glory of the human story is that the capacity for good news makes ethics possible; the tragedy is that the propensity for evil makes ethics necessary.
In the next session, we'll discuss, in brief, ethics in public service. Bi 'idhnillah."
