Corrosion of Moral Character in the Workplace - Essay Example

CORROSION OF MORAL CHARACTER s Submitted by s: Introduction Aristotle explains in his books that there are two distinct types of human excellences which involve the excellence that will pertain to thought and the excellence that pertains to the character of a person (Tessitore, 1996, p. 36). It is from this that we can make the conclusion that the excellence that pertains to character regulates and is the most closely related to moral issues (Siccardi & Iseminger, 2008, p. 38). Moral character can be looked at as the assessment of the constant moral principles that are held by a person. Character can be looked at as in a wider scope that will entail and include the situation has the virtues that are acceptable or a situation that this virtues do not exist at all. There is a whole list of these virtues that will include actions that range from empathy, being trustworthy and dependable to having attributes like courage and determination (Miller, 2013, p. 4). In a description by the psychologist, Lawrence Pervin, he says that moral character is a personality or disposition that articulates conduct in patterns that are clearly defined in a variety of situations (Pervin, 1994, p. 108). From the descriptions that have been given and explained by Campbell and Bond about the dynamics that majorly stimulate the character of a person and the moral development, things like heredity and early child hood experience which cannot be controlled by the person come into the picture (Campbell & Bond, 1982). The bible also tries to explain moral character in the book of Genesis where God had man created in his own image meaning that man was designed to behave and have the character that God intended him to have and from the Christian point of view it means that the morals that they should uphold should be those that conform with the character of God (Catlin, 1818, p. 83). Plato also put his opinion into the moral character topic through his many dialogues that were termed as the Socratic dialogues that were aimed at weighing the virtues that a person possessed and the character that a person who adhered to virtues had. They so often than not involved Socrates trying to get an explanation from the people that he was having the dialogue with on what a certain virtue pertained really was (Irwin, 1995, p. 95). To give him a good clearer picture that was easily comprehendible, they would answer this question with questions with their own behavioral interpretations. In a particular occurrence in the Republic Socrates paints the picture that when a person borrows something and later returns it, this situation cannot be looked at as justice since there would be situations and instances where returning what had been borrowed cannot be right thing to do (Plato, Ferrari & Griffith, 2000, p. 22). This is further brought to light in Laches where Socrates makes it clear that when in a battle, being obstinate cannot be seen as courage since this can will most often than not be the source of danger to yourself and others that are in the battle with you. According to this account, the courageous person can be able to weigh and judge the situation and know when the battle environment needs him to stand down and retreat (Rutherford, 1995, p. 85). Moral Character and the Workplace When looking for a job so that one can join a particular firm or even when in that firm already and garnering for a promotion, character will play a big role in what will be the outcome of the efforts that will be put in towards this venture. When it comes to the evaluation of whether the person that is seeking the job merits it or the person that is looking for a promotion deserves it, the standards of character that are needed are rarely compromised. An employee that will display characters that are truthful and reliable the organization that he or she is working for without necessarily having to be pushed to do it improves the reputation that he or she holds in that particular work place. This character will go a long way in the consideration for promotions and other rewards that may be bestowed on the people that have exemplary service in the workplace but this depends on how the organization carries out its business. The actions of a single employee that may have moral characters that are questionable and exhibits them in the work environment can go a long way in damaging the organization even long after that employee has been dismissed from the organization and this also paints a bad picture on the part of the people that lead the organization as they are the custodians of its good name. The employees are supposed to carry a sense of responsibility and display integrity throughout so that the image of the company that they work for can continue to be viewed in high esteem for the greater good of the company and also to avoid scandals (Hemingway, 2013, p. 96) There are a lot of arguments that usually go round about whether the workplace conditions that exists today play a role in the Corrosion of the moral characters of the people that are employed there. The cultural ideologies that we possess put a lot of emphasis on the individual and the virtues that are closely as associated with this individuality and many consider this to be actually the way it is supposed to be. This is not usually the case since individuals don’t act in their own lonesome and are sometimes forced to act as part of a larger entity or group and in a manner that will be prescribed by the rules that govern the place that they work (Grewal, 1990, p. 48). The individual identity is only exhibited by the role that the person will be tasked to play in the greater community and this will be what will be used to define him. This can be explained with the case of the police who enter the academy for training and when they leave there, they are not only considered to be working for the police force, but they are defined by the rules that are prescribed by being enrolled to work in the service (Kleinig, 1996, p. 67). Still in the case of police members, they are expected to possess an amount of loyalty that should be very high but at the same time they are supposed to act in such a way that they are loyal to the other members of the force that they work for and this brings out a situation that will be characterized by confusion on the part of the individual person. The policeman will have a very hard time trying to conform to both of these demands and the moral obligations that are characterized by both situations. This situation becomes even more complicated since the police are normally held in high regard by the population as a result of the work that they do but they view the same population as a hypocritical lot since the society expects them to have high moral standards yet the same society shows signs of decay in the moral characteristics that they possess. The character erosion and corrosion sequence can be reversed and ultimately done away with if the people that are in the situation that they are occurring decide to do something about it and act diligently. To change this erosion of character that will be biting the whole group of workers at a particular work place, it will take the efforts of the people that work there putting in efforts and working as individuals to make a collective change in the end (Patankar, Brown & Treadwell, 2005, p. 200). It can also be argued and it has come up from a variety of sources that, social morals and character erosion and corrosion continues to grow with the growth of capitalism which makes people leave a particular place to go work in places that are far from their home. It is considered that the family helps to shape the morals and the character of people and when they are away from the family unit on work related duties, the moral character and values continually get diminished. As we go to work on the places that are away from home and as capitalism continues to get a grip on the world, we are then exposed to things that we were not really familiar with and the kind of information that reaches us and also the communication that is everywhere makes the lifestyles that we lead evolve to ape what is prevailing. The organizations that we work for are also caught up in this maze and they too will want to conform to the prevailing circumstances and as they are doing this they will forget to put the concerns and the wellbeing of the individual in mind. The people that are employed by these organizations will then be expected to champion this agenda even if they are against its principles and also even if they go against the moral characters that the employees stand for (Storey, 2004, p. 50). Managers are normally under a lot of pressure to perform and post results that are positive and this means that they should create ways of getting more profit, making organizations that employs them grow, making the investments that the organization undertook pay off among other things. The boards of these organizations will always be on the manager’s case to make things better for the organization and this is not a bad thing since the organizations ought to be posting positive results for it to be viable in the market and attract more customers. The managers might decide to take shortcuts to success that will be in contradiction with the moral characters that the workers possess and when these shortcuts are taken, it will be the obligation of the workers that are employed there to implement the policies that will arise from them. This might be a difficult task for some of them since it will mean them conforming to moral principles that are decadent. Eventually, the principles and the moral characters that the workers might have had in the beginning will slowly erode as they get used to the new one that they have to work with.in most situations, they cannot be able to challenge these decisions since they are not in a position to make the organizations policies and if they go against orders they may be relieved from their jobs (Walton & Duska, 1998, p. 40). Even the Nazis were involved in the erosion of moral character which they managed to achieve by force and this made the people scared to the point that they had to agree and conform with what the regime was fronting and there was no way that they were able to go against it. Clamence gives a good account of these in the narration where a woman had two children and she was forced to make a decision on which one of the two children would be killed and which one would be left alive by an officer who worked for the Nazi. The officer had a clear intention to make the woman feel that making that choice was something that was important even though it involved the loss of a life and particularly the life of her child. The officer was doing what his job required him to do and maybe if he was not working there he would not have done such a thing. Clamence also explains that the modern liberal workplace also participates in this kind of eliminations though their approach to it does not encompass the use of mass killings to make the people follow. They have their own “kind of liquidation” that involves making people always work such that basic values that are based on morals will slowly wither away without the person really knowing what is going on. The modern place of work will make sure that every bit of time that their employee has will be spent in meeting their wishes and this will in the long run erode the most basic of moral values and the family value that the employees had. Even the feelings of love, hate and fear will be filled by the need to be organized, beat deadlines and worker harder for the good of the company and this will eventually lead to the employees being spiritually dead (Srigley, 2011, p. 101). In the case of “total institutions” there is a great contribution to the practice that erodes moral which is more robust and defined where this organizations will require that the their clients completely conform to their ways and this will put the clients in a spot that they cannot interact with other population groups openly. A good example of these is the military camps that will usually have stringent rules that govern them and must be adhered to and followed to the letter without any kind of compromise. This institutions will generally eliminate the individuality that a person and the social status that a person has and in the gap that is created they will plant values that will promote uniformity and in other circumstances unacceptability. The process that the people that go into this total institution go through as they are being oriented clearly show how they erode the morals of the people that are going in as they are given terms like cleansing and trimming to signify that they are shedding of the moral principles and characters that they had and acquiring the one that are uniform and supposed to be followed. Even the people that carry out this initiations and orientations were at one point holders of moral values that were straight and normal but what institutions that they work for required them to adopt a new set (Pfuhl & Henry, 1993, p. 146). There is the case of the porous institutions that is supposed to highlight the situation that the utilitarian fabric is being eroded but is evolving the characteristics that it possesses as a stimulus to how things are changing in the technological world and the global market that is continually becoming a part of these institutions. This will go a long way in the erosion of moral character since transactions have been reduced to short term engagements that are done by brokers and technicians and this will eventually kill the social relationships that exist and the solidarity that comes with it in the society. These institutions will require that the individuals amend the ways that they perceive themselves and the moral responsibilities that they possess since they can no longer depend on being the part of groups as a mean of acquiring the morals that they are supposed to possess but the will have to choose the groups that they feel will be able to accord them those morals (Cerulo, 2002, p. 133). Conclusion In conclusion, the workplace today acts as the major source of moral character corrosion. Previously in the workplace the flow of approval was in the upward direction which then meant that the workers that were tasked with implementing the policies of an organization were then accountable and answerable for the outcome that these policies yielded. However, this has changed over time and these days things are different since the people that are in the management are the ones that are held accountable. This has made the people that are in the management position take a stance that is beyond the criticism of the people that are in the lower positions in that they decisions that they make are final. Therefore when the managing elite develop policies that are parallel with the moral values of those that are in the lower positions, the employees have to implement them since they cannot dispute them and this clearly shows how the moral characters then get eroded (Scott & Hart, 1989, p. 31). According to Sennett there is not straightforward way to deal with this kind of problem but there it is important for people to stay close to their communities so that they don’t lose their identity and he also has the notion that the economy that is prevailing will not exist for long since it does not offer the people reasons to care about (Sennett, 1998, p. 148). References Campbell, V., & Bond, R. (1982). Evaluation of a character education curriculum. In D. McClelland (ed.), Education for values. New York: Irvington Publishers. Catlin, J. (1818). A compendium of the system of divine truth: Contained in a series of essays, in which the principal subjects contained in the Holy Scriptures, are carefully arranged, briefly discussed, and improved. Hartford [Conn.: George Goodwin & Sons, printers. Cerulo, K. A. (2002). Culture in mind: Toward a sociology of culture and cognition. New York: Routledge. Grewal, O. P. (1990). 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