Understanding Ethics: A Gateway to Good Judgement

In general, in most cases, some of decision we are face with on a daily basic will force us to make an ethical decision in our jobs, homes, and family emergencies. Therefore, when these situations are brought up we need to have a better understanding of ethics to make a good judgement. In short, “Ethics is a branch of philosophy and is also called moral philosophy. Ethics “asks foundational questions about the good life, about what is better and worse, about whether there is any objective right and wrong, and how we know if there is” (McKinnon, 2011, p. 4).

I was face with an ethical dilemma. In short, we all have dreams of growing up and being better than your parents and taking advantage of the opportunities they weren’t

I was currently station onboard one of the United States Navy Destroyer and I was in charge of 20 sailors and I knew if I wanted to be promoted to the next pay grad that I need to be in charge of more people so, I request to transfer to one of the Navy biggest ship which is an Aircraft Carrier. Therefore, I would go from managing 18 sailors to approximately 100 sailors and when I arrived like most ships the person in charge will have a couple of sailors he or she show favoritism to and they usually get all the achievement awards, leave work early, and easy job assignments. Often times, the supervisor in charge this to gain loyalties from the most popular sailors in their division and hoping the other sailors would do as they are told. However, some sailors started complaining that the current supervisors weren’t making ethical decisions in holding all 100 sailors accountable for their actions and that she needed to make better ethical judgements in discipline the younger sailors. For the most part, the supervisors in the Navy are taught how to make ethical judgments in dealing with out sailors by using terms like good, bad, right, wrong, and what we ought to do or ought not to do for our sailors (MacKinnon, 2011, para. 1). Therefore, I was placed in charge and one of the top running junior sailor started showing up to work late and leaving early because the previous supervisor allowed her to do so. In short, she didn’t show up to work for two days so, I sent a couple of sailor to her apartment and they found her drowsy but conscious. The young sailor calls me and told me that she was home because someone earlier in that week tried to break into her house, but she didn’t call the police. Therefore, I must inform my supervisor, but I decided to wait to hear from the other sailors