Social Influence on the Ethical Values - Case Study Example

Ethical profile Abstract The content of ethics appears in all spheres of the modern life. It predetermined the emergence of different ethical areas such as: humanistic, authoritarian, professional and so forth. The aim of this work is to study and analyze the social influence on theethical values and behavior of the individual on the basis of personal experience. “A central feature of morality is moral principle” (Pojman, Louis P., 1990, 5). Aristotle said that man's actions are always purpose-oriented and every activity has its aim, consequently these purposes form one general hierarchy. According to Aristotle, people must assume the highest value, which must be desirable for its own sake, rather than being a mean for achievement of some other goals. Bearing the character of welfare or the highest good, it determines the measure of the perfection of a person and social institutions. This paper provides the analysis of the basic features of professional ethics and its influence on the major life spheres of the person. Part 1. Ethical autobiography. The everyday life brings us situations, interesting for consideration from the ethical point of view. Since ancient times people tried to find out what is considered to be “right” and “wrong”, but it can be clearly seen, that there is no definite answer. Professional ethics is an integral part of the preparation of every specialist. It is a system of moral principles, norms and rules of behavior of the specialist, considering the features of his professional activities. “Codes of ethics are established by professional groups for the purpose of protecting consumers, providing guidelines for practitioners, and clarifying the professional stance of the organizations” (Corey, Gerald, 2010, 11).The contents of any professional ethics consists of the general and the particular principles. I consider the professional ethics as a set of moral values, which must be determined, in the process of execution of person’s work duties. First of all, I keep the principle of professional solidarity. It means that the working staff functions as a united team, supporting and helping each other. The professional solidarity of the working team is a very important feature. It brings people together, gives them self-confidence, helps to find a place in life and contributes to the successful solution of complex problems at work and beyond. A sense of group solidarity on a professional basis performs positive role for all its members. It helps to maintain the employee’s self-esteem, as well as to stimulate the rise ofthe individual and collective responsibility for the quality of work. The second important principle in the professional ethics is a special understanding of duty and honor. The attitude of the person to his work forms the individuality and reputation of the professional. It influences his character and style of life. It is important to perceive job not only as the way of income achievement, but at the same time as a hobby, which helps one to develop and grow intellectually. The third principle of professional ethics, which I consider to be very important is a special form of liability due to the subject and the type of activity.Especially, it concerns the professions in the sphere of medicine. In this case, a person is responsible for the life of others, that is why before accepting the right to heal people, the student must decide, whether he can manage to sacrifice some part of his life and time for the sake of others or not. Professionalism and attitude to work are the important quality characteristics of moral character of the individual. They are of paramount importance in the personal assessment of people, but their content had different meaningsat various stages of historical evaluation and development. “It seems to be an empirical fact that whatever human beings consider to be good involves happiness and pleasure in some way, and whatever they consider to be bad involves unhappiness and pain in some way” (Thiroux, Jacques, 1998, 3).Talking about the content of “right” and “wrong” in my daily life, there are some principles, which I consider to be the major ones. First of all, it is humanism and collectivism. Since my childhood I always tried to understand people and their needs. In my opinion, everyone, at least once in his life, should do something good for other person. The reward comes later, if the person does it sincerely. People always remember good things, that is why everyone should start with his own personality. The old proverb says: “treat others like you would like to be treated”. I also support some general Bible principles, such as: do not steal, kill, lie and so forth. My theory says that all bad things always return to the addresser, that is why it is very important to have a power over your emotions. In order to analyze different types of ethical behavior, I will provide four different situations from the real life. The first example represents the chaos of the 90s of the last century, when the Russian gangsters had great success, based on the loss of ideology and fear of people. If we consider the understanding of morality in relation to honesty, then we get a rather mixed picture. In Russia, honesty has always been a loose concept. The contents of “right” and “wrong” stayed too close to each other. The one who robbed a big businessman, happened to earn “fortune” money in the early 90s is often seen today more from the positive side than the negative one. This robber has managed to acquire the status of a kind Robin Hood of the 90s. From this example we can see a duality of the contents of “good” and “bad” interpreted by people. Bible says “Do not steal”. It does not make exceptions, such as one can steal money from other person if he is rich and it won’t be harmful for him. Moral principles do not have exceptions, but people manage to understand it in their own way. The periodic rewriting of the history and change of ideology, provided peoplewith a chronic lack of confidence in the understanding of “truth”, and as a consequence, caused the transformation of moral principles. The second example. It should be noted that the moral system of each state is based on its own mentality and moral values, so we cannot strictly judge it from the positive or negative side. For example, for the Russian people remain unacceptable the credit relationships between parents and children, practiced in the west. The west ideology dictates that children are born to be independent financially and bear full responsibility for their lives. That is why a lot of teenagers in western countries have a pert-time jobs, which is considered to be a normal thing. At the same time Russian and Ukrainian children usually think about job at the age of 18-19. By that time, they study at the educational establishments at the full expense of their parents, including all living costs as well. On the one hand I support the ideology of western countries and think that a person must be taught to care about himself as early as possible. On the other hand, we can understand the position of Russian parents, who try to protect their children from the difficulties of life as long as they can. The third example. Let’s consider the legalization of drugs in Amsterdam. All people know, that drugs are prohibited for usage and a lot of countries, such as Great Britain, the USA, Germany and so forth has strict laws, which prohibit the maintaining and usage of drugs. However in Amsterdam, drugs are legalized and people are allowed to have them just on the street or in any other public place. I consider it as a strong violation of moral values. I support the countries, which take care about the health and life duration of their nations. The forth example concerns abortions and the view of the church on this process. All religions of the world consider abortions as a deprivation of child’s life and represent it as a big sin. However, modern medicine practice abortions as a legalized procedure, despite theological views and ethic principles. Medicals consider this procedure useful in case of some abnormalities of the fetus, identified during the pregnancy period. Again, we face different attitudes in relation to one event. My personal ethics states that the life of the child is the most precious thing, which should be saved in any case. The cultural heritage of my family included the customs and traditions, which formed my own principles of ethical behavior. I was grown up with the great respect for the old generations and accepted all the advice, given by my parents and close relatives. My personal ethical behaviors include: Not to do things, prohibited by law. Every citizen must understand that he lives in a social world. In order to keep the balance of it, people should treat each other with respect and comply the accepted rules; To be worth trust. Mutual trust and solidarity fills the life of the person with the thankful people. Always pay debts and return borrowed things. My personal ethics do not allow me to short-sell another person, because trust will never grow in such conditions. To be successful and prosperous. Everyone must have aim or dream, which makes him achieve certain results and encourage for self-development. These are my main four ethical behaviors. Part 2. Professional/Ethical Hero. A person, who has greatly influenced my value system is the sixteenth American president Abraham Lincoln. It was the person, who struggled against the slavery and supported the interests of those, who were oppressed and humiliated. For me, this person serves as a role model, because of his ethical presence. First of all, he managed to unite people by means of the common aim, not with the appliance of power, which is ethical commitment. Secondly, in his speeches and actions, Lincoln voted for the maintaining of the integrity of the country. Despite his strong and leading abilities, he always tried to solve all the issues in the democratic way, which is ethical courage. Thirdly, he came from the family of poor farmers, that is why he was so obsessed with the troubles of ordinary people and tried to make their life better, which can be considered as the sensitivity ethics. This person has been a role model for millions of people for many years. His personality is still considered as a reflection of wisdom, justice and strength. I think many people find the ethical principles of Abraham Lincoln as the effective laws for achievement respect and recognition.“The two besetting sins in our prevailing habits of ethical thinking are our ready acquiescence in unclarity and our complacence in ignorance – the very sins that Socrates died combatting over two thousand years ago” (Frankena, William K., 1973, 13). Part 3. Ethical decision/making style. “Some ethical theories emphasize principles of action in themselves, and some emphasize principles involving consequences of action. Other theories, such as Aristotle’s ethics emphasize character. According to Aristotle, it is most important to develop virtuous character, for if and only if we have good people can we ensure habitual right action. Although the virtues are not central to other types of moral theories, most moral theories consider the virtues important” (Pojman, Louis P., 1990, 9). Making decisions is an integral part of our life. The most difficult thing is to make these decisions in accordance with the ethical values. When taking decision, I always try to answer the main questions, in particular: Is this decision harmful for someone? Did I study the case carefully, taking into account all details? Does it correspond my moral principles? What benefits will I get? What will be the consequences of my decision? I use this method in order to make the right choice, which will bring welfare not only for my own interests, but the interests of other people as well. My family taught me to look ahead before doing something. Consequently my style of decision making involves the preservation of social welfare and predicting the future consequences. As I stated in the autobiography, my major ethical principle concerns the contents of humanism and collectivism. Making good for others gives you the big dividends in future and makes your life valuable in terms of moral values. This course of study has served as the influential factor for the development of my ethical behavior. It helped me to look at myself from the outside and analyze it in terms of different life spheres. Part 4. Professional and ethical development. Analyzing the professional ethical values, described in this work, I will allocate two main spheres, which I would like to develop in future. The first one is the principle of professional duty and honor. I am intended to be a good specialist and a respectable person in my future profession, that is why I need to do my best in order to achieve the appropriate knowledge and skills. I completely understand that the achievement of these features will take a certain part of my life, time and forth, however, I will not consider this as a negative feature, but as an important step for the achievement of my purposes for the sake of the future welfare. The second value is the professional solidarity. I will do my best in order to become the decent member of the work team and share my knowledge with others in order to reach the highest point of productivity and success. My further ethical development will be connected with the restraining of my character. In the daily life, troubles or even such trifles as bad mood can influence the quality of the work and communication with others. In order to achieve harmony and success, a person should fight his weaknesses. I consider this issue as my weak point, that is why I will pay special attention to the elimination of this feature from my life and character.“One element involved in the achievement of happiness is the necessity of taking the long – rather than the short-range view. People may undergo some pain or unhappiness in order to attain some pleasure or happiness in the long run. For example, we will put up with the pain of having our teeth drilled in order to keep our teeth and gums healthy so that we may enjoy eating and the general good health that results from having teeth that are well maintained. Similarly, people may do very difficult and even painful work for two days in order to earn money that will bring them pleasure and happiness for a week or two” (Thiroux, Jacques, 1998, 3). In conclusion, it is important to mention that transformation of morality in today's society is inevitable, though its complete disappearance is impossible. Ethical values and principles have been stored for hundreds of years and continue to be the integral part of today’s life, forming a positive moral character of our people and country as a whole. References Corey, G., Corey, M. S., Callanan, P. (2011). Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions. Eighth edition. The USA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning. Frankena, W. K. (1973). Ethics. Second edition. New-Jersey: Prentice-Hall., INC. Pojman, L. P. (1990). Ethics. Discovering right and wrong. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Thiroux, J. (1998). Ethics. Theory and practice. Sixth edition. The USA: Prentice Hall. Read More