Monday, May 12, 2008

Module 6 Reading Reaction: "Everyday Ethics" By Lynna

We need to ask ourselves everyday, “How should I treat someone else?” and “How do I want to be treated by others?” because it helps us build good relationships with other people that benefits both parties. The reading talks about Ethics and how it poses questions about how we ought to act in relationships and how we should live with one another. The way we act when we are with our close friends may not be the same as how we should act when we are with classmates so it’s important to behave in a manner that is both acceptable and ethical in the group.
In the article, it talks about why moral aspects of global issues is not easy to achieve because things such as these requires a lot and we lack the authority to settle these issues. The difference between moral aspects of day-to-day living vs. global moral issues is that the moral aspects of day-to-day living are more direct, persistent, and urgent. Unlike global moral issues, they are not direct to us that we can just do something.
Moral behaviors are important in everyday ethics because it is concerned primarily with the interpersonal dimension of our behavior: how we treat one another individually and in groups — and, increasingly, other species and the environment. Morality brings us into contact with others and asks us to consider the quality of that contact and also, moral norms and codes, plus a set of virtuous character traits, are what we mean when we talk about ethics. Ethics asks us to consider whether our actions are right or wrong. It also asks us how those character traits that help humans flourish (such as integrity, honesty, faithfulness, and compassion) play out in everyday living. Ethical norms and principles have developed over time and across cultures as rational people of goodwill consider human relationships and how human beings act when they are at their best. Moral behaviors such as these are carried out in our everyday ethics because it affects not just ourselves but the people around us.
We need to keep in mind also that people from different cultures might not have the same beliefs as we do, so we can not generalize what is ethical and what is not. Personal ethics is important when considering what is ethical and what is not because we need to keep an open mind that everyone does not believe in the same things. This is why we all have personal ethics. Personal ethics might also be called morality, since they reflect general expectations of any person in any society, acting in any capacity. These are the principles we try to instill in our children, and expect of one another without needing to articulate the expectation or formalize it in any way.
What I like about the reading is the part that stated, “We share a responsibility for creating the external world by projecting either a spirit of light or a spirit of shadow on that which is other than us. We project either a spirit of hope or a spirit of despair.... We have a choice about what we are going to project, and in that choice we help create the world that is” because it is very true. Everyone in a community share responsibilities that creates this place we live. The jobs that we do and the little things we do to help make our environment a better place to live in creates the world we live in. The jobs that we have help contribute to the economy we live in because we work and get paid and use the money we earned on the economy which eventually prospers because money is coming in. If everyone was lazy and didn’t work, we wouldn’t see the spirit of hope because we are not helping each other make it happen. Good things don’t just come to us. We need to work hard and work together. Having morals and practicing everyday ethics means taking special responsibility for what's going on inside our own self and inside our own consciousness.

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