GCC Ethics CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS ETHICS ETHICAL REASONING 4 1 13
WHAT IS ETHICS and
ETHICAL REASONING
CHAPTER 1
What is Ethics?
• Deals with what is right or wrong in human behavior and conduct
• Comes from Greek “ethos” meaning character – to the individual character of a person or persons.
What is Ethics?
• Ethics has to do with questions relating to the fairness, justness, rightness, or wrongness of an action.
• What is the right thing to do in this situation? Example
• What constitutes any person or action being good, bad, right, or wrong, and how do we know?
• What part does self-interest or the interests of others play in the making of moral decisions or judgments?
• What theories of conduct are valid or invalid, and why?
• Should we use principles, rules, or laws, or should we let each situation decide our morality?
• Are killing, lying, cheating, stealing and sexual acts right or wrong, and why or why not?
ETHICS - DEFINITION
• Ethics are a set of principles of right conduct that govern an individual or group. • Put into practice, ethics are the rules you follow when no rules apply – your ethics are at work when you do the right thing in situations that are not governed by any established laws, policies, or rules.
Being Ethical. . .
• (1) is clearly not a matter of following one’s feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.
Being Ethical. . .
• (2) One should not identify ethics with religion.
Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint.
Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior.
Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.
Being Ethical. . .
• (3) is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical
standards
ETHICAL REASONING
CHAPTER 1
What is Ethics?
• Deals with what is right or wrong in human behavior and conduct
• Comes from Greek “ethos” meaning character – to the individual character of a person or persons.
What is Ethics?
• Ethics has to do with questions relating to the fairness, justness, rightness, or wrongness of an action.
• What is the right thing to do in this situation? Example
• What constitutes any person or action being good, bad, right, or wrong, and how do we know?
• What part does self-interest or the interests of others play in the making of moral decisions or judgments?
• What theories of conduct are valid or invalid, and why?
• Should we use principles, rules, or laws, or should we let each situation decide our morality?
• Are killing, lying, cheating, stealing and sexual acts right or wrong, and why or why not?
ETHICS - DEFINITION
• Ethics are a set of principles of right conduct that govern an individual or group. • Put into practice, ethics are the rules you follow when no rules apply – your ethics are at work when you do the right thing in situations that are not governed by any established laws, policies, or rules.
Being Ethical. . .
• (1) is clearly not a matter of following one’s feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.
Being Ethical. . .
• (2) One should not identify ethics with religion.
Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint.
Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior.
Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.
Being Ethical. . .
• (3) is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical
standards