Human beings are born with the consciousness of knowing right from wrong. When making choices people use ethics, values, and morals to guide them throughout their daily lives. So what makes a person choose to commit an ethical wrong against another person? Or what makes a person do what is ethically right? One way to help people make the right decisions is to have an ethics committee in each state that provides laws with ethic guidelines to regulate behavior and consequences. Most government agencies have an ethics committee that they send all alleged violations, but the committee does not have the authority to send someone to jail. Each state should pass a new bill, so if an ethical violation is committed then the penalty should be severe enough that the person who committed the ethical wrong would not want to commit another violation.
Not many people agree with a new bill to enforce every violating a person can commit. Richard Foglesong, a professor of politics at Rollins College, disagrees with a new ethical bill that lays out the law in detail. Foglesong states, “First [the government] should not begin by identifying every imaginable ethical violation and writing a law against it. Rather, they should take an educational approach, adopting an ethics mission statement that is value-based rather than punitive, saying what public officials should do instead of what they should avoid.” The mission statement would be a start, but we still need more. After we come to an educated conclusion that a value of ethics was violated, then what? What good is a mission statement going to be, if we have no law to penalize the violators? What about the actual law that a person has violated? We need to hold the violator responsible for hurting ...
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...uld be less second offenses because people would think twice about the consequences. We the people need to come together and push the legislature to make a bill for the ethics committee. The bill would stop the corruption in office, make people deal fairly with one another, and there would be fewer violations.
Works Cited
Deslatte, Aaron. “Ethics Reform Stirs Heated Debate in Senate.” Orlando Sentinel 30 Mar. 2011:
A3. Newsbank. Web. 30 Mar. 2011.
“Ethics Rules Need Kick – County’s Reforms Lack Touch Enforcement.” Editorial. Orlando
Sentinel 5 June 2010: A16. Newsbank. Web. 1 Apr. 2011.
Foglesong, Richard. “Lessons to Share from Ethics Reform in Winter Park.” Orlando Sentinel
17 Dec. 2007: A23. Newsbank. Web. 1 Apr. 2011.
“Samson Scandal Leaves Stain on the Legislature.” Editorial. St. Petersburg Times 2 Apr. 2011:
4A. Newsbank. Web. 2 Apr. 2011.
The Moral Philosophy of Ethics as defined by Cyndi Banks is defined as “a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of questions of right and wrong and how we ought to live, Ethics involves making moral judgements about what is right and wrong, good or bad.(2).” Ethics in the criminal justice department is important because it justifies ones actions. In The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo and Hard Measures by Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr. there are many scenarios of ethical dilemmas that need to be questioned.
Stephen L. Carter is an American law professor, social-policy writer, columnist, and a bestselling author. Carter graduated from several Ivy League schools earning eight honorary degrees. In 1996, Stephen L. Carter wrote a book length meditation on his idea of what integrity means. His purpose of “The Rules about the Rules” regards the current state of public integrity. Although many Americans in today’s society do not know right from wrong, I agree with Carter’s response to what integrity really means.
Ethics refers to a system of moral standards that guide the decision for human conduct of what is right and wrong based on everyday life situations, usually in terms rights, obligations, benefits, fairness, or virtue. Ethics is used as a formal guideline for conducting business in order to minimize pain to the greater number of people as a whole. The principles of ethics come from the knowledge and understanding of the word of God, the Bible. It tells us how we ought to think and behave toward one another considering first, how we want to be treated. For instance, we have the right to freedom of speech as long as we don’t insult the integrity of others. In addition, God gives us examples for how make right decisions and warns of those to avoid. Knowing this, that if we have love in our hearts first, for our heavenly father then we’ll have compassion for our fellow mankind to behave ethically.
There has been a huge debate throughout the years of whether humans are ethical by nature or not. Despite Christian Keyser’s research evidence that humans are ethical by nature, the evidence from the Milgram experiment shows that we are not ethical by nature. Humans learn to be ethical through genetic disposition as well as environmental factors such as culture, socialization, and parenting. In order to understand if we are ethical or not, we need to understand the difference between being moral or ethical. Many people believe that being moral and ethical are the same thing, but these two terms are a bit different. “Morality is primarily about making correct choices, while ethics is about proper reasoning” (Philosopher, web). Morality is more
Ethics is “a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of questions of right and wrong and how we ought to live” (Banks, 2013). Also it involves making moral judgments about what is right and or wrong, good or bad. In the process of everyday life, moral rules are desirable, not because they express absolute truth, but because they are generally reliable guides for normal circumstances. Ethics or moral conduct, are of major importance in the criminal justice field today. If the police force condoned unethical behavior, there would be very little, if any, justice being served. A system of rules and principles helps to guide in making difficult decisions when moral issues arise. Ethics has been shown to be a central component in decisions involving ethical dilemmas. It is “concerned with standards of conduct and with “how I ought to act”, and standards of conduct may vary among different societies” (Banks, 2013). An ethical dilemma arises only when a decision must be made that involves a conflict at the personal, interpersonal, institutional, or societal level or raises issues of moral character. Richard Hare argues that we initially use an intuitive level of moral thinking when we consider ethical dilemma. There are “six steps in analyzing an ethical dilemma and they would be as follow” (NASW, 2014):
Who decides what is ethical and what is moral? There are no standards of conduct that everyone in the world agrees upon. There are different religions, cultures and ethnicities in this world and because of that; there will most likely never be a day where everyone finds everything that someone else does to be ethical or moral. Since there can never be a universal standard for morality and ethical behavior for people everywhere, we must stop judging people by looking through the lenses of our culture or society . We must judge someone and his actions by the standards of his culture or society. An action one person considers being justifiable behavior may not be the same case for someone else. When cultures and religions cross paths that do
While training in ethics is important to reduce department liability and aid officers in making decisions, this is not the only way to promote ethical decision making on the part of officers. Ethics training should be combined with a rigorous employment screening process that attempts to bring the best possible candidates into the profession. Utilization of both of these tools together increases the likelihood of good law enforcement candidates, and continues the movement towards
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
Ethics are influence from many demographics which include family influences, peer influences, past experiences, religion, and situations. People decide whether something is ethical and whether or not it is right or wrong based on these influences. Individuals decide whether something is ethical or unethical based on family influences because people absorb about the ethical status or something family members based on how our families act. Also individuals also conduct their decisions based on peer influences because classmates and friends that surround us, usually impact a person’s believes on what is right or wrong overtime. Furthermore, people also resolve to their decisions on whether something is right or wrong established on past experiences because they predict their benefits on demographics that had happened to them in the past. Additionally, people select some decisions based on religion because a person’s religious beliefs will usually inspire he or she on what is right or wrong. Finally, another way people base their ethical decisions is based on the situations they are in because people sometimes change their beliefs depending on the circumstances they are in.
Ethics are moral principles that can be used to help guide peoples decisions. We are all different and therefore our beliefs and opinions differ. There are many ethical theories, and according to Panza and Potthast (n.d.) the following are some that are widely used. Virtue ethics is one theory which states that personality is the most important thing. Living an ethical life, acting right, requires that one develops and demonstrates the quality of courage, compassion, wisdom, and temperance. It also requires that greed, jealousy, and selfishness is avoided. Utilitarianism states that the amount of happiness and suffering created by a person’s actions is what matters the most. As a result, acting rightly includes maximizing the amount of happiness and minimizing the amount of suffering around you. At times you may need to break some of the traditional moral rules to achieve such an outcome. Kantianism is another theory which highlights the principles behind actions rather than an actions results. It states that it requires to be motivated by good principles that treats everyone with respect. If you’re motivated by good principles, you overcome your animal instinct and act ethically. Another ethical theory is the Contract theory, which suggest that ethics should be thought of as terms of agreements between people. It suggests that doing the right thing means obeying agreements set by members rather than those of society. For this theory ethics isn’t necessarily about character, consequences, or principles. The last theory I’m going to mention is Care ethics. Care ethics focuses on ethical attention on relationships before other factors. As a result, acting rightly involves building, strengthening, and maintaining strong relationship...
Society and the individuals that make them up can be complex and difficult to understand. Based on the first question, ethics is defined as the principles that govern the way people and the groups that make them up behave. So what would society be like if a single form of ethical behavior is assigned to the criminal justice system? My response would be that it is nearly impossible to judge every single human being by a single form of ethics. In truth, what would our criminal justice system look like if it became so one dimensional, it would change the way we view justice and the way, which it is practiced. The truth of the matter is that individuals are too different to judge based on a standard. You might have a person that is clearly innocent,
In my opinion, ethics give people free will to make right choices. People have free will to make choices that are governed with responsibility, accountability, and liability. We have a responsibility to perform in an ethical manner and be accountable for our choices or actions. Regardless of the circumstances and choices we make, there are consequences if we make the wrong choice. The question of whether an action or choice is ethical or not is fundamentally based on whether something is right or wrong. From an ethical standpoint, unethical choices and risky behavior can lead to increased liabilities. The liabilities result in the loss or damage sustained by a company or other party as result of an unethical and sometimes illegal decision. Although we exercise free will on a continuous basis, we are governed by the decisions we make and my belief is that the decisions we make daily do not just affect us. These decisions affect other people, such as family, friends, coworkers, instructors, neighbors, etc. The most prominent example of ethics can be recognized in the field of technology based on the growing amount of rapidly changing legislation and acts that under consideration in order to protect people from unethical practices.
Generally, ethics is defined as standards of performance that explains how human beings should opt to react during many circumstances in which they meet with friends, citizens, parents, teachers, children, professionals, and businesspeople among others. However, ethics is different from feelings, as feelings make significant information’s available for our ethical preferences. Although some people posses highly mature behaviors that formulate them to feel awful when they get involved in the wrongdoings, most of the people normally enjoy doing bad things.
When asked what is the definition of ethics, many responded that being moral meant doing the right thing. But how can we justify what is a good action and what is a bad action? All humans were created equal, but our principles, and ways of thinking can be extremely different. Some may say doing the right thing means following your heart, your inner feelings and intuition. But emotions can be misleading. Others say in order to do what is the morally right thing means to follow the law and do what is right by society, to be accepted. But today’s society is judgmental and can be corrupted with numerous opinions due to the diversity of cultures. So what does it mean to be ethical? Being ethical means doing what is right in terms of virtues, fairness, duties, responsibilities, obligations, and moral believes all which derived from cultures and family backgrounds.
Much of our lives we are faced with situations where we come across the opportunity to make ethical and unethical decisions or opinions. We come across difficult people who live their lives unethically. Do we allow them to influence us? Do we become transparent and lose ourselves when it seems as though everyone is doing something that is morally wrong? I for one, do not give in to this peer pressure.