Lessons from ethics

 

Lessons from ethics

Here are the three key lessons that I can say I’ve had a great takeaway from my ERAU ethics course.

1. Ethics training

I think we all know that nearly every organization or company has an introductory new employee course that discusses ethics, mainly in an effort to insurance themselves from future litigation that may arise from ethical dilemmas caused by employees. The lesson I took away was that the ethics training courses, especially those provided to senior leaders within corporations and even those in institutions of higher learning. The fact that ethics training courses have been overlooked, not prioritized and ultimately leading to corruption within the ranks of corporate culture. The lesson reminded me of how even someone like me that has a degree with a minor in business was not provided more training on ethics prior to graduating and entering the nation’s workforce.

2. Moral issue of pollution

Pollution has a special place in hell for me. Growing up in a rural area, I’ve grown to dislike things like single use plastics, trash, toxic emissions, and the like. The lesson I took away was the increasing frequency of finding polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water. The ethical dilemma caused in my backyard was due to fire fighting foam used at a former US Air Force Base. The federal government continues to fall short in their obligations by accepting responsibility for the ecologic disasters, and funding the clean up efforts so that people can return to having clean water for drinking, fishing, hunting, and other important tourism the area relies on to survive.

3. Ethics of discrimination

We know there have a lot of media stories and coverage about many forms of discrimination, whether it be age, race, sexual orientation, or other. The lesson I took away was from a deeper look into discrimination through the lens of ethics. Humans can justify just about anything, as long as they are committed to the subject. We have the capability to change our minds when someone makes a counterpoint to our argument, but discrimination appears to be inherent from our nation’s founding, and through to its current culture. Affirmative Action is a more recent rabbit hole people find themselves going down, but hopefully its because they want to learn more.

In each of these lessons, I found my thinking being expanded, I heard from others with their views, and I learned that each lesson contains many different ways to analyze how I, and others, arrived at our conclusions.

Changes in ethics

This course has changed my thoughts about ethics in society, but not as an individual, or within an organization. I believe that my initial thoughts about how ethics plays a key role as an individual, and with an organization remain unchanged. Its my perception of how ethics has evolved within our society that has changed.

Expanding the ethics horizon

As an individual, ethics has changed my perspective because it is my choice to act in an ethical manner. If I chose to lie, cheat or steal, its because I decided to do so. I’m influenced by the environment around me, and its my decision to let the influence change my views. Many ethicists suggest that individuals’ personality differences are irrelevant for determining how we should act (LaFollette, 2007, p. 62). Should I remain intact and not wavier in my commitment to living ethically, its because I decided for myself.

In an organization, ethics has changed my perspective by growing my awareness of how ethics plays such an important role in developing a sense of belonging. An organization can quickly change, especially from the top down. If there is corruption from the senior leaders, it has a cascading effect that will drive change, but one must be careful to ensure this change is ethical. There are far too many cautionary tales of organizations falling off their pedestal and come crashing down because of poor unethical decision-making at the top.

As a society, ethics has changed my perspective by acknowledging the importance of being aware of how ethics changes the fabric of everything around us. Watch any commercial on tv, read an advertisement in a magazine, or simply go onto social media for a dose of what is happening in our society. You will quickly realize that we walk a very fine line between what is and what is not ethically, or morally correct. There are far too many opportunities for our society to end up losing what we’ve spent so many years trying to do; finding our true ethical ourselves.

References

LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. In The practice of ethics (pp. 8-21). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.