I have heard this somewhere but I cant remember where. It is just always in my mind because I find it reasonable according to my life. I also think that always thinking about this sentence always make me feel better about who I am. I also think that it does relate to everyone's life. And, because having it realting to everyone's life, it sometimes gives me a sense of belonging too (when I need it).
Yes, apparently it may cause an interest to one individual as to what the logo is about. However, there is a limit as to how far it takes for us to understand and decipher the logo. When a female wears a shirt, the logo is usually imprinted right in front of their chests. Therefore, wouldn't it be rude to keep staring at the logo on their shirts? I certainly think so. However, if you are really curious, there are ways as to be able to look at the logo on the t-shirts. You could ask the lady nicely for her permission to look at the shirt or just ask her what is the logo on the shirt. If you don't get a reply that satisfies you, then too bad, everyone has their own privacy. However, i know of this person who does otherwise. Before asking a particular lady for permission to look at her shirt, he stares at the logo for a very long time, no matter whether it is in a meeting they have or other matters. Then when the lady notices, he will ask her what the logo is but with his eyes still glued onto the logo rather than the lady's face. Most people who sees this action would be appalled by it. In this case, so was the lady, so she walked away quickly to finish her work. However, this man would follow her and keep inquiring on what the logo is. After many times of the situation happening over and over again, the lady confronts the man and tells him that the action of staring at the logo on the shirt is very rude in her culture for it is at the chest region. However, the man doesnt care and still does it everytime, not only to her, but to all her colleagues too. I don't know what other people think about this situation, but to me, i think that this man is very unethical and immoral. Staring at a logo on a shirt that a female wears is already counted as a very unethical behaviour, for it would seem no different from looking at the female's chest which is rude. Not to mention the fact that when he was confronted about the ethics of her culture and how it is rude to do such a thing, he did not care, which seems to me to be very immoral and disrespectful of one's culture.
EXCELLENT First Postings DELTONE and IRACUNDIA...I must say...impressive thoughts...!
I have here a posting of my own which I would like ALL OF YOU to read, understand, reflect on, and comment...you have until Friday, 17 August 2007, to post your own blog comments, be it personal or world-based, and at the same time respond to this post of mine... ---------------------------
What is Ethics?
Ethics is a body of principles or standards of human conduct that govern the behavior of individuals and groups. Ethics arise not simply from man's creation but from human nature itself making it a natural body of laws from which man's laws follow.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy and is considered a normative science because it is concerned with the norms of human conduct, as distinguished from formal sciences such as mathematics and logic, physical sciences such as chemistry and physics, and empirical sciences such as economics and psychology. As a science ethics must follow the same rigors of logical reasoning as other sciences.
The principles of ethical reasoning are useful tools for sorting out the good and bad components within complex human interactions. For this reason the study of ethics has been at the heart of intellectual thought since the early Greek philosophers, and its ongoing contribution to the advancement of knowledge and science makes ethics a relevant, if not vital, aspect of management theory. Ethical principles continue, even today, to have a profound influence on many modern management fields including quality management, human resource management, culture management, change management, risk management, mergers, marketing, and corporate responsibility.
Socrates argued that the determination of good or bad behavior depended entirely on the integrity of the rational process. Plato argued that to know good was to do good, that doing good was more useful and rational than doing bad, and that one who behaved immorally did so largely out of ignorance. Aristotle argued that ethics was a purely logical outcome of human nature and it was useful because it was logical. Kant argued that system-wide consistency was a logical requirement of ethics, stating that ethics begins with the rejection of non-universalizable principles, and that any adopted ethical principle must be a desirable universal law to be applied by everybody. Pareto clarified the win-win relationship into philosophical terms by defining Pareto Efficiency as the transactional state where at least one party is better off, most are as well off, and none are worse off. These are just a small sampling of powerful ethical principles that, when applied, will improve performance in any organization.
Ethics is much more than just a collection of crafted values. Values in abstraction can be good things, however when people articulate specific values into positions or rules and act on them, they very often make poor ethical choices. Relying on value positions to assure ethics is tricky business because these value positions are almost always oversimplifications that rarely can be applied uniformly. Such positions tend to be under-defined, situational by nature, and prone to flawed human reasoning such that by themselves they cannot assure true ethical conduct.
Consider the sought after value of employee loyalty. Should employees be loyal to co-workers, supervisors, customers, or investors? Since it may be impossible to be absolutely loyal to all four simultaneously, in what order should these loyalties occur? Employers that demand employee loyalty rarely can answer this question completely, yet many demand that employees somehow intuitively know which ranking applies in any given situation. In a great many instances the average employee needs the support of certain organizational processes to make the the most effective choices. In these instances, the quality of the process drives the quality of the individual's ethics.
Regarding the inadequacy of values, consider this. Murderers, criminals, and liars all have values, so does this make them ethical? Furthermore, church leaders and clergy espouse good values, so does this guarantee that a specific decision is ethical? Upon examination, a murderer is capable of reasoning and acting ethically just as a minister is capable of reasoning and acting unethically. For these reasons and more, values by themselves are generally insufficient measures of ethics.
Part of understanding ethics is realizing that we are all capable of the best and worst ethics at any time. Therefore, step zero in one's ethics education begins with recognizing the inherently high ethical error rate in us all, appreciating the negative affect these errors can have on people, organizations, and ourselves, and making the prevention of these errors a priority in our personal and professional lives. Once this step is fully grasped, then the tools of ethical reasoning come easily and benefit their users greatly.
A proper education in ethics calls for a more rigorous treatment of the subject than most business ethics courses take. Real ethics is a process of rational thinking aimed at establishing what value positions to hold and when to change them. Real ethics requires the continuous realignment of value positions in accordance with ethical principles. In real ethics, we must be ready to adjust our thinking, positions and behavior to be ethical and to remain ethical over time. Hence, ethics demands a willingness to change. In organizational ethics we find a metaphysical paradox. Change management requires ethics, and ethics requires change management. Since both are true at the same time, with each preceding the other, we can only conclude one thing: that indeed the quickest way to assure poor ethics may be to require fixed adherence to value positions over time.
Real ethics is about ordering the complexities of human behavior in the most useful manner for all involved. Subsequently, in every conceivable human endeavor there exists an ethical component that either succeeds in achieving usefulness and good for all involved, or fails to do so in varying degrees. This gap between reality and the ideal state can be expressed as a quality problem and solved using both ancient and modern management methods.
Ethics Quality occurs when two conditions are met: when a repeatable reasoning process is followed; and when the outputs of this reasoning result in the intents, means, and ends all being "good." When the conditions for ethics quality are met the organization becomes capable of preventing ethical failure, not just catching and punishing it. Without a means of prevention organizations have no means for controlling its ethics quality. The key to good organizational ethics is awareness and real time detection (before the fact, not after). Both awareness and detection can be greatly enhanced by basic awareness training and training aids. It is a regrettable fact that most ethical failures in organizations are detected well after the fact making any realistic prevention unlikely.
Poor ethics can be extremely damaging to organizational performance (ref. Enron). When ethical behavior is poor it taxes operational performance in many visible, and sometimes invisible ways. The tax can be on yield or productivity, which is easily measured. The tax can impose itself on group dynamics, suppressing openness and communication, which is hard to measure but easily felt. Perhaps the most dangerous tax is the one placed on risk, which is neither measurable nor easily sensed. Whether the damage is visible or invisible, poor ethics blinds the organization to the realities of their declining environment leaving any organization vulnerable to setbacks that could be avoided.
Good ethics on the other hand have a surprisingly positive effect on organizational activities and results. Productivity improves. Group dynamics and communication improve, and risk is reduced. One reason for this is ethics becomes an additional form of logical reasoning, increasing the flow of information, and adding an additional set of eyes and antennae to give the organization needed feedback regarding how it is doing. Increased reasoning capabilities, coupled with additional information, is a strategic advantage in any business or organization.
Real organizational ethics is a rational process for exploring decision and behavior alternatives and selecting the best possible choices for all involved. Real ethics, at the organizational level, goes beyond personal ethics and values. Real ethics is a collective undertaking, or a team sport, with team like demands and results. Ethical issues in organizations can get complicated very quickly, so much that even the best trained ethicists often will not know what decisions to make or what ought to be done. Such times are precisely when the disciplined reasoning of ethics quality pays off the most. Ethical decisions and their corresponding behaviors in organizational settings are never perfect. However, the quality of the processes applied, as well as the usefulness of their outcomes, is precise and measurable with scientific certainty. It is through the process of ethical reasoning that bad things are preventable and great things become more possible.
Organizations need ethics quality not only to prevent unhealthy behavior but to inspire superior reasoning and performance. It is only through human nature, and ethics, that we can inspire greater levels of innovation, teamwork, and process breakthroughs that result in sustainable competitive advantages. Oliver Wendell Holms wrote, "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form." The same is true with management and ethics. When managers understand how ethics makes them better, their role as a manager changes forever. Once ethics is learned we all acquire the ability to see what we often could not see before. We see that using ethics - the reasoning science - to improve individual and group performance is what real ethics -and real management- are all about. (http://www.ethicsquality. com/about.htm) --------------------------- Have a good one...take care and be safe always, my ETHICAL PEOPLE...CIAO!!!
People now, are always wasting things. Money, for example, it's a waste buying things that you already knew would be useless, but still having it because of the good-looking it has. It's the same with the foods, if you can't eat that much, don't take so much then...! We're having a life that other people might not have, but we're wasting it. We're wasting things becase we do not know the value of which, because we do not know how hard it is to earn money, because we simply didn't think that much. In my opinion, I really think wasting is really a bad behavior towards things.
It is not rare at all to be seeing homeless dogs on the streets. Those dogs were mostly home pets before, but then human started to abandon them when human lost their interests on these dogs. If one carries the responsibility to feed and raise a puppy, then it would also be one's responsibility about the dog's life and death. Not every single dog wants to be petted, but human force them to be home pets. Throwing away or abandoning dogs on own wills is not forgivable; the dogs deserve their rights to at least have a home. It is very unethical for people to just drop dogs on the streets and not care about them. Perhaps people often use the word "ethical" and "unethical" on human, but dog have lives, therefore, they deserve these two words too. If human don't want to be treated unethically, then they shall stop treating animals unethically.
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats--Howard Aiken (1900 - 1973)
I accidentally see this quotation on the internet, and I found it very interesting. I believe that many people have experienced this kind of feeling too; when their idea got steal by others. “Plagiarism” is the word that refers to those who are “Copy Cats”. It used to be only a vocabulary hidden in the dictionary, but nowadays it is well-known by everybody and it even becomes one of the rules in the school. When students walk into the classroom, the teacher will explain the classroom rule and will mention again and again of “NO PLAGIARISM!”. Why do you think this word became so familiar these days? Well, it is because nowadays people are not original enough. Some might copy because they are lazy to think, and copy other people’s work is a lot easier and can save their time. Some might try to think, but still, they are not original enough because they might get strike by a word or an idea of other people and try to come up with their own idea, but mostly contained 90% of other people’s idea. Stealing is immoral! It is unethical! Even though the thing you steal is as small and untouchable as an idea. People who steal other people’s ideas are very disrespectful to both themselves and others. It seems like they don’t even value themselves! Plagiarism is immoral, unethical. Therefore, stop plagiarism!!!
Everywhere we go, no matter it's the street near our house or the place we go to school or work, we will see garbages lying around on the floor. Why is this happening so? Albeit there are a lot of garbage cans for people to put their trashes in, some people still throw away things that are useless to them on the street.
Let's take a look at this school for example. After every break time or lunch time, there are a lot of plastic bottles and some other trashes left behind on the benches and the ground.
Aren't we learning in the school to be a learner and to cast away our ignorant and tenaciousness? We are civilized people, that, I am sure of. Thus, I strongly believe that it is immoral to do such atrocious actions as to harm our environment, no matter what they may be. Whether we like it or not, we are bound to live along side with our environment. Hence, harming the place we live in counts as an indirect way of slowly eradicating our fellow humans and other living things.
From years before, people have started to notice the damage we made to the Earth. Some tried to help but some ignored it. I think we should all care for the environment we live in. Taking care Earth is not only some's responsibilty but to all's. I understand that one's limitation can vary, but we all can start from somewhere near us; the place we live in or areas around us. Just by not using the air conditioner from time to time can help imporve the pollution conditioner creates. Recycleing is also one of effective way to help. By recycleing, we can control the amount of unnecessary trash that the Earth needs to digest. Therefore, I think we should all help even if it's not that much, but start from the places around us can be a very progressive way.
When we walk during the days, we once in a while might notice the little coin on the ground that we walked pass. Let's say you saw it, will you pick it up? Of course. "It's only five or ten baht, who would care if i picked it up and keep it myself." That's what you might be thinking. Well, you might be right, who would care for a five or ten baht coin? What if you saw a pack of thousand baht bank notes on the ground, will you pick it up and keep it yourself?
The difference here is the amount of money. Five or ten baht isn't too much, so the person that lost it wouldn't worry too much; but ten thousand baht is a big amount, the person who lost it will really be in trouble. When you found the money, it is always right to send it to the nearest police station, but how do you decide the amount of money as big or small? Is it ethical to pick up the money from the ground and keep it ourselves? Does people even care if it's ethical anymore?
Russia to sink flag to Arctic Sea floor in oil, land grab... (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/ asiapcf/08/01/arctic.grab.ap/ index.html#cnnSTCText)
This is a world news that I saw from CNN, where I think what they are doing are unethical! When the world is facing a serious problem with global warming, these countries that circle around the arctic is claiming the rights to over the place for they believed that it’s full of resources such as oil and natural gases. Since they have the time and money, should don't they spend them on solving global warming. Even though, in the report, it said that the Russian scientists are there to study about arctic plants and animals, however, with these studies what are the benefits we can get. Now, everyday we can see the effects of global warming toward human, animals, and the Earth. So this make we wonder, does money weight more than ethics on a balance.
Some people always insult others without looking at themselves...
Sometimes I think of this after insulting or disrespecting my friend. People always disrespect people despite of their own flaws. No one’s perfect and it really make sense. Disrespecting others is just a way to call for attention and make you feel better, on the other hand, the disrespected feel sad and stuff. Sometimes the person just laughs, but inside, s/he might feel bad, and nobody know about it because the person doesn’t show it out. Sometimes people should think about it and put them into the disrespected position. This stuck in my mind because the school principle uses it on me every time I got into trouble with my mouth.
Every now and then, we meet people who are different from us. There are many ways to define the word ‘different,’ whether they have some minor/ major disabilities, they have something you don’t have, or you have something they don’t have. Each day, these people often come across awkward moments because of the behaviors of other individuals. Scattered all over the world are people who suffer from sickness: having their mouths twisted, their nose being the size of our head, having scars on certain parts of their bodies, having dots all over their bodies, all these sorts of things. There really are many of these people, whether you see them or not. These people couldn’t have chosen how to be born, could they? Who could, anyways? Thus, scattered all over the world are also people with bad attitude or people who don’t think before they speak. In my opinion, one of the most common questions when these ‘unethical’ people come across a disabled individual is “EWW! What’s that?! How did it happen?” As much as the victim might ‘look’ grateful to answer the question, it’s kind of obvious to know that the very first word has already hurted the victim! Even though these people might be disabled, but don’t they deserve to have to right to be treated in a nicer way? Okay, talking about something you see in your daily life: somebody with a twisted ankle who has to walk with their feet pointed in different directions all the time. For example, there is a teacher in our school who has that kind of disability. Every time the teacher walks pass groups of students, the students stare at him/her. Isn’t it kind of rude? We’re lucky if the victim is nice enough. Some victims just suddenly lose confidence with just a few ‘unethical’ words spoken to them, and ‘poof,’ there goes their confidence. Some just lose their sense of belonging. Don’t people have any more ‘ethical’ ways to express their thoughts rather than hurting these people emotionally?
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"wow", that was a long one about ethics..hard to understand, but true =) sometimes it's hard for people to start step zero, right?
You might not notice that our everyday life is making the Earth hotter and hotter everyday. Such as driving a car to work or using electricity in the house. The main reason that cause the Earth to heat up is the pollution that we cause. All of us can prevent the world from getting hotter by using recycle materials and growing more trees can decrease the pollution. We can live more happily if everyone cooperate.
True, I believe that to decide what is ethical or unethical is very complicated. What may be ethical to one person can be unethical to another person. Everyone has a different perspective point and personality, which indeed make us very different from each other. Some people value the values they want to get so much that what is unethical to the others is ethical to them. For example, a man values money. For whatever he does to gain money, it is ethical for him. If the man values money because his wife is sick and he needs money to buy medicine to cure her, is he ethical or unethical? Nevertheless, being ethical is a good behavior to have because there will be good side effects. Being unethical, in the other hand, can create a havoc.
Never know that ethics is both science and philosophy at the same time, that’s interesting. Ethics is a powerful tool to sort out good and bad. Especially in an organization because bad ethics can do a lot of damages to an organizational performance. The damage can be visible or invisible. It also block the organization from the reality of their bad environment. Good ethics have a positive effect. Communication, productivity, etc. are improved, risks are also reduced. Ethics was studied since ancient Greek by Greek philosophers. It is very important because it’s a very power tool. I also never know that good and bad ethics can cause lots of damage or lots of improvement to an organization.
This might look easy, but it's not until you are really doing it. Please, always think about what you are going to say or do before you actually act it out. However, People do know about this but they aren't doing it, so they always forgot and regrets later in the end. Well, if you are saying something, let the words go through your mind first, because your words may hurt them or could be offensive to the person. This may cause consequences for the speaker and the listener. If you've spoken something offensive, you might not notice it, but actually you are already hurting other people. Furthermore, if you did something without careful planning, this might be even a more serious conflict comparing to something spoken. Instead of mentally injured, they will be physically injured as well. This will not only cause a problem to the injured person, it can also harm you. You might feel bad to what you've just done, you might not. If you dont think saying or doing something is appropriate at that time or situation, dont do it. Consider the following" What needs to be done and whats not". This case was important to be brought up because we all know the fact " Think before you act", but are we realy doing it? Take a moment and ask yourself, have you done something that might hurt other people? If yes, you stop it, if not, your on the right track. So If you dont want yourself and the others to regret or feel bad, simply "Think before you act"!
Literally, Ethics has several definitions. From here i got the rules in respect to human actions or to a particularly group. Therefore i totally agree with what was written in the frist paragraph. Ethics is a conduct, and it arises from human nature (natural body laws) from which man laws follows. Ethics are about behaviors and laws we need to follow. Furthermore, i would also like to respond to the last paragraph. Any group or society need ethics not just to prevent inappropriate behavior but to also understand why they should do something, and why they shouldn't do something. I realized how ethics has an impact reflecting our lives. In reality, several conducts and laws we need to follow, but laws are made to be broken. Not everyone knows the laws, but if you know, don't break it like someone who doesn't know. This quote is excellent "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form" by Oliver Wendell Holms. True, if you once experience something, and the next time experience some better, would you like to experience the first one if you had the choice to try the second one again? ofcourse, we choose the better one. No matter what an ethic is- a philosophy, a conduct, or rules, what does not change is that ethics improve individual and group performances, and it also tells us how to manage things.
It is so true that ETHICS is important in every aspects of our lives. I agree with the fact that change management needs ethics and ethics needs change management. Also, the idea that people who have their own values isn't always ethical;but i do believe that if someone is said to be ethical, the person must have some values in him/her that people admire or agreed with.
It is true from the posting that the standard of ethical can be hard to determine. What values to one can be crap for others. But just like what we discuss in class today, who set the rules for the standards? If I valued my friends more and ignored my family, does that mean i'm not ethical? Since to me friends being the first place is logical, but maybe to other's family should be valued the most. If that the case, the argument of Aristotle can't convince me. However, I do agree that having good ethics and bad ethics can make a big difference in our life.
Lets face it. Nobody can remain a good-two-shoe all the time. Once you’re in a desperate situation, there’s a very very very very rare chance that you’re going to remain ethical. Sometimes trying to be ethical to someone means being unethical to another. It all depends on the different point of views. As the society changes, what is unethical today might become ethical one day, simply because our society is getting worse and worse. Some unethical acts that we see these days could seem very normal to us in the future. I agree that poor ethics damages a society because nowadays, that’s just the way things are. No offense, but people these days are becoming more and more selfish, after all, people are born selfish. People no longer care about environment as a whole, but rather “What good is this environment going to do for me?” Very small amount of people try to make a difference for the environment without thinking about themselves. Some people these days try to behave ethically just for the sake of looking good in others’ eyes, but deep inside them are full of unethical thoughts that are grasping hold of them. You can’t just point at someone and say what they’re doing is ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’ nowadays. I guess you have to weigh their reasons. True, as you see in the news these days, people who seem ethical and have power over people like the government do unethical acts by corrupting. I’m just saying that to prove and trust that someone ethical is a lot harder than proving someone unethical. In other words, it’s so easy to be unethical, but so hard to prove to be ethical.
Ethics is a difficult word to understand, even after reading its definition. After reading, I am so curious about it, If ethics is man's creation for people to follow. But then, what is the standard of ethics, how do we determined bad and good, right and wrong, or what should we do and not to do. In the article it said ethics can help good ethics helps improve organizational performances , and help reduce damages. But then, shouldn't all people have the same value and understanding of ethics in order to collaborate with each other. However, why should ethics be created, so that people can act nice? In my option, I think ethics is like law; both of them act like a rope that ties around you, where for most people they like to break free, it is the same meaning of breaking them. Since "ethics" is still a questioning subject, why people should follow them, and even learn them...
Today many of us lives in a reasonable enviroment. Our parents are rich enough to buy a house for you to live, pay for an international school for you to study, and we grew up safely in this enviroment as a normal individual. However, let's take a look at people living in different places of the world. Some families couldn't make a lot of money to afford their children's education, health care, or even living. Some families in Iraq grew up with threats around them, people bomb their village, people could get shot on the street, and etc.. Without education when the children grew up they might not get hired for a job, and it would be hard for them to survive. Therefore, consider yourselves lucky enough to have a relatively good and secured enviroment. We might as well donate or service in the community to help those who needed our help.
Response Ethic can be seen in many ways, it can be explained in many certain ways as well. Using it on other people, it also works. I agree that all citizens no matter male or female, young or old, they all can be an ethical person. Even like what the paragraph stated, murderers, criminals and liars have values. If a person has values, there are still spaces for them to change. It’s their decision of being an ethical person or not. Ethic is opened to anyone one of us in the word, not for certain people. In my opinion, I think ethic can be separated in levels. The good and the bad level. Yes, everyone is ethical, but NOT everyone is as ethical as any of them are. Ethic is human behavior, and human behavior is depended on a person’s mood and how that person reacts to a thing. Whenever a person is in a bad mood, the human behavior changes, and not everyone would do something bad when they are upset. Human behavior is important because many people would look at your behavior and state a conclusion on you whether this person is ethical or not.
What we are in now it’s a real society, parents always tells us what to do, or we should be planned and well prepared for our future, or for college. But many of us annoyed what they said, maybe not many of us, but few of us. This has been my problem since when I’m young. The decision’s only on our own whether we want it or not. Primary and secondary need. I could really mix both of them up. Sometimes secondary would come as primary and I would put aside the primary, which is like learning. I guess this is because I’m used to it which now caused a lack of responsibility. And that is what I wish to change and no waste my time anymore. Our future is depended on what decisions we make, any decision is better than no decisions at all. Make good of our lifetime, fulfill out life is what I think we should do.
What can I say...truly impressive first postings!!!
Almost all the ones who decided to make use of aliases have already informed me through my "valente@tcis.ac.th" e-mail who they are...THANK YOU! However, I have no confirmation yet coming from "DAI_LUCIFER", "SMILEDEVIL" and the "CHINESE/JAPANESE" character logo.
At the moment, 15 out of 18 have already posted...the last three will have until tomorrow...CIAO!!!
If a person was to post an entry like Mr. Aquino here without giving the citation of where it was taken from, people would say it is an unethical behaviour, for it is plagiarising. However, who is it that decides whether this behaviour is ethical or not? Within the post, ethics is defined as "a body of principles or standards of human conduct that govern the behaviour of individuals and groups", but who exactly defined these principles and standards? The post also states that ethics rose from human nature and man's creation. Humans are heavily effected by their environment. We are possible to determine good ethics and bad ethics because of our family backgrounds and how we are taught. However, if there was a family who taught their children bad ethics as good ethics and good ethics as bad ones. Their good ethical behaviours will be much different from ours, but who could blame them? they were brought up differently. In the post is says that good ethics is a strategic advantage in any business or organization. However, in the real world, some actions taken in business aren't exactly ethical, but how come some of those companies that take unethical actions earn more than those that do? For example, in the music industry, some companies may use payola in order to make their music popular. This, according to me and what i believe in, is a very unethical behaviour because you are putting off other people's chances of earning money, in other words cheating. However, still they earn a lot more money for their songs are heard more often than those from another industry. So how do we actually determine certain ethics being good or bad? As of my own opinion, there is a very thin line in ethics between good and bad.
I appologized of my mindless mistakes I have made (deleting the comment for 2 times~~!) Please Enjoy reading
As Mr.A said “Don’t do it because you want the Grade, that would be meaning less” in today. This made me think about a book called “Success Built to Last”, which I have read during this summer. Everyone are chasing for the success, but “what is Success?” If you look at the dictionary, and the definition would written “the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.” If we look at the wealth, position, and honor, you will know that these are the most popular targets in a lot of people’s life. And no one really care about “the like”. So, when you reach one of the things that others call it success such as wealth, position, or honors. Will you be satisfied and happy after you reach those things? The answer is “NO”. It is true that a lots of people whose completed their life’s goal as “My goal is to be rich, to be in high position, and win a lot of honor” had suffer from disorder and feeling unfulfilled about it. The most surprise things is, for those who had reach their goal, they even felt painful than before. What’s wrong about it? Why do they still feel suffer after these? Because things that they did were meaningless for themselves, after they complete all those meaningless stuffs, they can’t handle the things that they got. For me, I would explain it as the beast that trying to collect as much food as they can, and it can’t eat them all, and don’t know what to do for the rest. “Success built to last” explains these things, but this will be completely different to common knowing about “success” There are 3 properties that the “real Success” have 1. Meaningful goals: things that you love to do 2. Thinking style: the strong mental to handle the obstacles. 3. Action style: Being active. Let’s talk about those who were interviewed in this book (Who have already achieved these things.). We will call them “Builder” from now on. The meaningful goals: Builders always love what they do, they don’t even care about the income and the money they got. Money is important, but it’s not the goal of your life. It just like the blood and water in your body, it is important, but that’s not what you live for. Some people will claim that, we should work and find enough money first then do what you like to. In the opinions of Builders, the jobs itself is their own happiness. Warren Buffett (2nd rich in the world): I worried about those who said: “Hey! I will do this job for 10 years, even I don’t like it, but after 10 years I will….”. For me, this is just like using your own health to exchanged wealth while you’re young, and exchanged wealth to health back in older age. Builders are builders because they choose what they love to in very beginning… Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. also said: “Life is short, so don’t waste your time to do what other’s expect you to do, but do what you expected. Don’t let other’s attitude to swallow up the scream in your mind. The most important things are you should have the braveness to follow your own intention and intuition. They (intention and intuition) always know what you really want to do. Others are not as important.” Please examine yourself: “Are you living in what others expect you to do, or living in what you truly want to do?” This will be the first step to make your life better after you have figure this out.
There were so much thing I want to write more about, and so much incomplete things I want to explain, but it would be easier if you buy one “Success built to last by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson” Product by Wharton University of Pennsylvania.
The article reminds me the next essay that I plan to post next week, but I will write it briefly here.
What’s so important about the ethic? And what is Unethical ethic? As it discuss in the paragraph, unhealthy value cause unethical action. So, what causes the unhealthy value? The unhealthy value came from when the need of a person is not satisfied. For example, you cannot convince a really starve guy to stop stealing food or the only way he can live unless you provide enough food for him. This is based on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which I think is very reliable. It explains human’s need had divided into 5 levels. 1. Food 2. safety 3. love and belonging 4. self-esteem 5. Self actualization (which include moral). It explains that the lower need you have, the more chance you will have the unhealthy value and mental. If you don’t satisfy your hunger, you would do anything for food. If you don’t feel safety of surrounding, you would be easily feared by anything, (ex: students who chase for good collage and occupation blindly and read for GPA because they felt unsafe about their future.) Feeling not belong to anyone, any society or loved by someone would made you felt you’re worthless to live. Without self esteem, you would afraid to do anything. It is not going step by step, each level of need support each other, such as the belongingness supports your self esteem. However, it is not necessary to satisfy each level completely, but it will be easier to build up the next level if you have enough basic level. You can also build up THE NEXT LEVEL through THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE LEARNED. And this is what ETHICS’ jobs to teach us the right information. For example, a disorder murder kill an innocent guy to built up his confidence, if that murder know the other way to build up his own self esteem correctly (such as trying hard on what he loves), he will not ends up with killing a person. Most importantly, this theory is also point out one thing. Everyone have their own freewill to be better or be worse. It is up to your choice.
After reading and trying to understand what ethics is, I started to realize how important ethics is. Ethics is from human nature, and it is also both science and philosophy (by the way, I just knew that it was science, a little bit surprising). Therefore, ethics had been discussed for a long time since the Greek philosophers. I also agreed on the fact that ethics could not rely on values. Because everyone has values, even a murderer, but he is not ethical. It is hard to say which is ethical and which is unethical because we have different values; we view things differently. Therefore, there is no standard to qualify ethics. Ethics is connected to management and it can lead to many consequences. If it is good ethics, then we are developing; if it is poor ethics, then our society is damaged. This is also relating to our decision making. We can choose to be ethical or unethical, not only ethical in our point of view, but be ethical as a general (laws that everyone accepts to be ethical). Let’s go back to the beginning; ethics is from human nature, so it means that everyone is ethical in their own way because at least they have their values. That’s called “nature”! Then, “nurture” starts to come. The people, environment, and media are influencing our values, our ethics. So, now, we start to develop. Just like the last sentence of the passage, the real ethics is to use it to improve individual and group performance.
I never thought a person can define the word ethics in such a detail and multi perspective way. Yes I believe we can view ethics in many ways. Like what was mentioned in paragraph 2 ethics could be a philosophy that philosophers argued through out history, or it could be view as normative science. Every one of us has his/her own ethics point of view. As long as our value of ethics is positive, I think there's not only one definition of ethics. We all can make mistakes and do the wrong thing. I agree with the paragraph that "we are all capable of the best and worst ethics at any time. Therefore, step zero in one's ethics education begins with recognizing the inherently high ethical error rate in us all" Which means we should know our ethical error in yourself first before we actually learn ethics.
I suppose, that even until now, the definition of ethics is still confused to most of the people. Every single person has own interpretations of what ethics is. No one can be certain of whether one is being unethical or ethical, simply because it has been a vague topic to identify. Ethics include morals, values, and decisions. Ethics is about right and wrong, the principles of behaviors. Morals fall under ethics because morals are also about right and wrong; it is hard to segregate ethics and morals. Honestly, i haven't truly get the meanings and differences between these two words too. Another confusing term, values. I personally do not think valuse are just values under the topic of ethics. The values of something doesn't relate to ethics straight forwardly. Values of objects don't really interfere with how one's ethcis are formed or what one's ethics are. I also wondered about what good ethics and bad ethics are. I don't think one abandoning a dog because one hopes to bring back the new lonely puppy home is a good ethic and ethical. Often, a decision seems to be benefitial and ethical to one side, but how about the other side? Perhaps the decision is teriible and unethical to the other side. I believe, in the up coming future classes we have, we will get to clear up the definitions of ethics, and will get deep into the discussions of what is ethical and what is not. :)
Ethic could be defined in many several ways; it simply depends on one's point of view. After reading Mr.A's post, I found out that ethic is an important attitude. Ethic may be a behavior of high standard. However, on the other hand, one's thoughts could also be a bad thing that would affect our community. He/she would have to learn to separate the good from the bad, and the right from the wrong.
Form what the article said, ethic is shown in the human nature. I think this statement solves the quesiton that we have in class. If ethic was shown within human nature, then, human aren't born bad. Also what Oliver Wendell Holms wrote, "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form." Onces someone "really" learns something, that thing will forever lives in ones mind.
im posting this for DELTONE... response to Mr. A's post
Ethics is more than I think it is. I agree that ethics is a hard topic to decide whether something is good of bad in someone's point of view. However, I'm very curious about why do they have to argue about it. I personally think it is hard, but if we don't think about it too much, there is nothing complicated about it. Ethics is jus "ethics" and everyone's thoughts are not the same. I think that the human brain is way more complicated than science-explained-theory shows us. In my opinion, it also consists of some kind of spirital thingamagigy which we don't know for sure what is it. To conclude, if it was me... I would just forget about what other people think is good and bad. I would only care what is good and bad in my opinion. That's why there are consequences included in the laws. If something good for me is bad for the majority, I will just receive the consequences. Eventhough someone says, "but that's not fair!!" I still value that as an opinion and not the majority.
Wow!!! I learn so many things about ethics. Such as, ethics have many different meaning depend how you use them. Ethics can be both good or bad. Ethics is consider to be a normative science too. Right now people are still arguing whether ethics is good or bad. In my opinion, ethics can be both good or bad depend on how people are using it.
35 comments:
We are always someone we don't want to be...
I have heard this somewhere but I cant remember where. It is just always in my mind because I find it reasonable according to my life. I also think that always thinking about this sentence always make me feel better about who I am. I also think that it does relate to everyone's life. And, because having it realting to everyone's life, it sometimes gives me a sense of belonging too (when I need it).
T-Shirts with Logos...
Yes, apparently it may cause an interest to one individual as to what the logo is about. However, there is a limit as to how far it takes for us to understand and decipher the logo. When a female wears a shirt, the logo is usually imprinted right in front of their chests. Therefore, wouldn't it be rude to keep staring at the logo on their shirts? I certainly think so. However, if you are really curious, there are ways as to be able to look at the logo on the t-shirts. You could ask the lady nicely for her permission to look at the shirt or just ask her what is the logo on the shirt. If you don't get a reply that satisfies you, then too bad, everyone has their own privacy. However, i know of this person who does otherwise. Before asking a particular lady for permission to look at her shirt, he stares at the logo for a very long time, no matter whether it is in a meeting they have or other matters. Then when the lady notices, he will ask her what the logo is but with his eyes still glued onto the logo rather than the lady's face. Most people who sees this action would be appalled by it. In this case, so was the lady, so she walked away quickly to finish her work. However, this man would follow her and keep inquiring on what the logo is. After many times of the situation happening over and over again, the lady confronts the man and tells him that the action of staring at the logo on the shirt is very rude in her culture for it is at the chest region. However, the man doesnt care and still does it everytime, not only to her, but to all her colleagues too. I don't know what other people think about this situation, but to me, i think that this man is very unethical and immoral. Staring at a logo on a shirt that a female wears is already counted as a very unethical behaviour, for it would seem no different from looking at the female's chest which is rude. Not to mention the fact that when he was confronted about the ethics of her culture and how it is rude to do such a thing, he did not care, which seems to me to be very immoral and disrespectful of one's culture.
EXCELLENT First Postings DELTONE and IRACUNDIA...I must say...impressive thoughts...!
I have here a posting of my own which I would like ALL OF YOU to read, understand, reflect on, and comment...you have until Friday, 17 August 2007, to post your own blog comments, be it personal or world-based, and at the same time respond to this post of mine...
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What is Ethics?
Ethics is a body of principles or standards of human conduct that govern the behavior of individuals and groups. Ethics arise not simply from man's creation but from human nature itself making it a natural body of laws from which man's laws follow.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy and is considered a normative science because it is concerned with the norms of human conduct, as distinguished from formal sciences such as mathematics and logic, physical sciences such as chemistry and physics, and empirical sciences such as economics and psychology. As a science ethics must follow the same rigors of logical reasoning as other sciences.
The principles of ethical reasoning are useful tools for sorting out the good and bad components within complex human interactions. For this reason the study of ethics has been at the heart of intellectual thought since the early Greek philosophers, and its ongoing contribution to the advancement of knowledge and science makes ethics a relevant, if not vital, aspect of management theory. Ethical principles continue, even today, to have a profound influence on many modern management fields including quality management, human resource management, culture management, change management, risk management, mergers, marketing, and corporate responsibility.
Socrates argued that the determination of good or bad behavior depended entirely on the integrity of the rational process. Plato argued that to know good was to do good, that doing good was more useful and rational than doing bad, and that one who behaved immorally did so largely out of ignorance. Aristotle argued that ethics was a purely logical outcome of human nature and it was useful because it was logical. Kant argued that system-wide consistency was a logical requirement of ethics, stating that ethics begins with the rejection of non-universalizable principles, and that any adopted ethical principle must be a desirable universal law to be applied by everybody. Pareto clarified the win-win relationship into philosophical terms by defining Pareto Efficiency as the transactional state where at least one party is better off, most are as well off, and none are worse off. These are just a small sampling of powerful ethical principles that, when applied, will improve performance in any organization.
Ethics is much more than just a collection of crafted values. Values in abstraction can be good things, however when people articulate specific values into positions or rules and act on them, they very often make poor ethical choices. Relying on value positions to assure ethics is tricky business because these value positions are almost always oversimplifications that rarely can be applied uniformly. Such positions tend to be under-defined, situational by nature, and prone to flawed human reasoning such that by themselves they cannot assure true ethical conduct.
Consider the sought after value of employee loyalty. Should employees be loyal to co-workers, supervisors, customers, or investors? Since it may be impossible to be absolutely loyal to all four simultaneously, in what order should these loyalties occur? Employers that demand employee loyalty rarely can answer this question completely, yet many demand that employees somehow intuitively know which ranking applies in any given situation. In a great many instances the average employee needs the support of certain organizational processes to make the the most effective choices. In these instances, the quality of the process drives the quality of the individual's ethics.
Regarding the inadequacy of values, consider this. Murderers, criminals, and liars all have values, so does this make them ethical? Furthermore, church leaders and clergy espouse good values, so does this guarantee that a specific decision is ethical? Upon examination, a murderer is capable of reasoning and acting ethically just as a minister is capable of reasoning and acting unethically. For these reasons and more, values by themselves are generally insufficient measures of ethics.
Part of understanding ethics is realizing that we are all capable of the best and worst ethics at any time. Therefore, step zero in one's ethics education begins with recognizing the inherently high ethical error rate in us all, appreciating the negative affect these errors can have on people, organizations, and ourselves, and making the prevention of these errors a priority in our personal and professional lives. Once this step is fully grasped, then the tools of ethical reasoning come easily and benefit their users greatly.
A proper education in ethics calls for a more rigorous treatment of the subject than most business ethics courses take. Real ethics is a process of rational thinking aimed at establishing what value positions to hold and when to change them. Real ethics requires the continuous realignment of value positions in accordance with ethical principles. In real ethics, we must be ready to adjust our thinking, positions and behavior to be ethical and to remain ethical over time. Hence, ethics demands a willingness to change. In organizational ethics we find a metaphysical paradox. Change management requires ethics, and ethics requires change management. Since both are true at the same time, with each preceding the other, we can only conclude one thing: that indeed the quickest way to assure poor ethics may be to require fixed adherence to value positions over time.
Real ethics is about ordering the complexities of human behavior in the most useful manner for all involved. Subsequently, in every conceivable human endeavor there exists an ethical component that either succeeds in achieving usefulness and good for all involved, or fails to do so in varying degrees. This gap between reality and the ideal state can be expressed as a quality problem and solved using both ancient and modern management methods.
Ethics Quality occurs when two conditions are met: when a repeatable reasoning process is followed; and when the outputs of this reasoning result in the intents, means, and ends all being "good." When the conditions for ethics quality are met the organization becomes capable of preventing ethical failure, not just catching and punishing it. Without a means of prevention organizations have no means for controlling its ethics quality. The key to good organizational ethics is awareness and real time detection (before the fact, not after). Both awareness and detection can be greatly enhanced by basic awareness training and training aids. It is a regrettable fact that most ethical failures in organizations are detected well after the fact making any realistic prevention unlikely.
Poor ethics can be extremely damaging to organizational performance (ref. Enron). When ethical behavior is poor it taxes operational performance in many visible, and sometimes invisible ways. The tax can be on yield or productivity, which is easily measured. The tax can impose itself on group dynamics, suppressing openness and communication, which is hard to measure but easily felt. Perhaps the most dangerous tax is the one placed on risk, which is neither measurable nor easily sensed. Whether the damage is visible or invisible, poor ethics blinds the organization to the realities of their declining environment leaving any organization vulnerable to setbacks that could be avoided.
Good ethics on the other hand have a surprisingly positive effect on organizational activities and results. Productivity improves. Group dynamics and communication improve, and risk is reduced. One reason for this is ethics becomes an additional form of logical reasoning, increasing the flow of information, and adding an additional set of eyes and antennae to give the organization needed feedback regarding how it is doing. Increased reasoning capabilities, coupled with additional information, is a strategic advantage in any business or organization.
Real organizational ethics is a rational process for exploring decision and behavior alternatives and selecting the best possible choices for all involved. Real ethics, at the organizational level, goes beyond personal ethics and values. Real ethics is a collective undertaking, or a team sport, with team like demands and results. Ethical issues in organizations can get complicated very quickly, so much that even the best trained ethicists often will not know what decisions to make or what ought to be done. Such times are precisely when the disciplined reasoning of ethics quality pays off the most. Ethical decisions and their corresponding behaviors in organizational settings are never perfect. However, the quality of the processes applied, as well as the usefulness of their outcomes, is precise and measurable with scientific certainty. It is through the process of ethical reasoning that bad things are preventable and great things become more possible.
Organizations need ethics quality not only to prevent unhealthy behavior but to inspire superior reasoning and performance. It is only through human nature, and ethics, that we can inspire greater levels of innovation, teamwork, and process breakthroughs that result in sustainable competitive advantages. Oliver Wendell Holms wrote, "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form." The same is true with management and ethics. When managers understand how ethics makes them better, their role as a manager changes forever. Once ethics is learned we all acquire the ability to see what we often could not see before. We see that using ethics - the reasoning science - to improve individual and group performance is what real ethics -and real management- are all about.
(http://www.ethicsquality. com/about.htm)
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Have a good one...take care and be safe always, my ETHICAL PEOPLE...CIAO!!!
Mr. A
People now, are always wasting things. Money, for example, it's a waste buying things that you already knew would be useless, but still having it because of the good-looking it has. It's the same with the foods, if you can't eat that much, don't take so much then...! We're having a life that other people might not have, but we're wasting it. We're wasting things becase we do not know the value of which, because we do not know how hard it is to earn money, because we simply didn't think that much. In my opinion, I really think wasting is really a bad behavior towards things.
Sorry for my deletion on the previous comment!!
Until when, will there no longer be street dogs?
It is not rare at all to be seeing homeless dogs on the streets. Those dogs were mostly home pets before, but then human started to abandon them when human lost their interests on these dogs. If one carries the responsibility to feed and raise a puppy, then it would also be one's responsibility about the dog's life and death. Not every single dog wants to be petted, but human force them to be home pets. Throwing away or abandoning dogs on own wills is not forgivable; the dogs deserve their rights to at least have a home. It is very unethical for people to just drop dogs on the streets and not care about them. Perhaps people often use the word "ethical" and "unethical" on human, but dog have lives, therefore, they deserve these two words too. If human don't want to be treated unethically, then they shall stop treating animals unethically.
“PLAGIARISM”
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats--Howard Aiken (1900 - 1973)
I accidentally see this quotation on the internet, and I found it very interesting. I believe that many people have experienced this kind of feeling too; when their idea got steal by others. “Plagiarism” is the word that refers to those who are “Copy Cats”. It used to be only a vocabulary hidden in the dictionary, but nowadays it is well-known by everybody and it even becomes one of the rules in the school. When students walk into the classroom, the teacher will explain the classroom rule and will mention again and again of “NO PLAGIARISM!”. Why do you think this word became so familiar these days? Well, it is because nowadays people are not original enough. Some might copy because they are lazy to think, and copy other people’s work is a lot easier and can save their time. Some might try to think, but still, they are not original enough because they might get strike by a word or an idea of other people and try to come up with their own idea, but mostly contained 90% of other people’s idea. Stealing is immoral! It is unethical! Even though the thing you steal is as small and untouchable as an idea. People who steal other people’s ideas are very disrespectful to both themselves and others. It seems like they don’t even value themselves! Plagiarism is immoral, unethical. Therefore, stop plagiarism!!!
The world cries for help...
Everywhere we go, no matter it's the street near our house or the place we go to school or work, we will see garbages lying around on the floor. Why is this happening so? Albeit there are a lot of garbage cans for people to put their trashes in, some people still throw away things that are useless to them on the street.
Let's take a look at this school for example. After every break time or lunch time, there are a lot of plastic bottles and some other trashes left behind on the benches and the ground.
Aren't we learning in the school to be a learner and to cast away our ignorant and tenaciousness? We are civilized people, that, I am sure of. Thus, I strongly believe that it is immoral to do such atrocious actions as to harm our environment, no matter what they may be. Whether we like it or not, we are bound to live along side with our environment. Hence, harming the place we live in counts as an indirect way of slowly eradicating our fellow humans and other living things.
Cleaning the environment
From years before, people have started to notice the damage we made to the Earth. Some tried to help but some ignored it. I think we should all care for the environment we live in. Taking care Earth is not only some's responsibilty but to all's. I understand that one's limitation can vary, but we all can start from somewhere near us; the place we live in or areas around us. Just by not using the air conditioner from time to time can help imporve the pollution conditioner creates. Recycleing is also one of effective way to help. By recycleing, we can control the amount of unnecessary trash that the Earth needs to digest. Therefore, I think we should all help even if it's not that much, but start from the places around us can be a very progressive way.
Picking up money from the ground...
When we walk during the days, we once in a while might notice the little coin on the ground that we walked pass. Let's say you saw it, will you pick it up? Of course. "It's only five or ten baht, who would care if i picked it up and keep it myself." That's what you might be thinking. Well, you might be right, who would care for a five or ten baht coin? What if you saw a pack of thousand baht bank notes on the ground, will you pick it up and keep it yourself?
The difference here is the amount of money. Five or ten baht isn't too much, so the person that lost it wouldn't worry too much; but ten thousand baht is a big amount, the person who lost it will really be in trouble. When you found the money, it is always right to send it to the nearest police station, but how do you decide the amount of money as big or small? Is it ethical to pick up the money from the ground and keep it ourselves? Does people even care if it's ethical anymore?
Money and ethics, which is more important?
Russia to sink flag to Arctic Sea floor in oil, land grab...
(http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/
asiapcf/08/01/arctic.grab.ap/
index.html#cnnSTCText)
This is a world news that I saw from CNN, where I think what they are doing are unethical! When the world is facing a serious problem with global warming, these countries that circle around the arctic is claiming the rights to over the place for they believed that it’s full of resources such as oil and natural gases. Since they have the time and money, should don't they spend them on solving global warming. Even though, in the report, it said that the Russian scientists are there to study about arctic plants and animals, however, with these studies what are the benefits we can get. Now, everyday we can see the effects of global warming toward human, animals, and the Earth. So this make we wonder, does money weight more than ethics on a balance.
Some people always insult others without looking at themselves...
Sometimes I think of this after insulting or disrespecting my friend. People always disrespect people despite of their own flaws. No one’s perfect and it really make sense. Disrespecting others is just a way to call for attention and make you feel better, on the other hand, the disrespected feel sad and stuff. Sometimes the person just laughs, but inside, s/he might feel bad, and nobody know about it because the person doesn’t show it out. Sometimes people should think about it and put them into the disrespected position. This stuck in my mind because the school principle uses it on me every time I got into trouble with my mouth.
Every now and then, we meet people who are different from us. There are many ways to define the word ‘different,’ whether they have some minor/ major disabilities, they have something you don’t have, or you have something they don’t have. Each day, these people often come across awkward moments because of the behaviors of other individuals. Scattered all over the world are people who suffer from sickness: having their mouths twisted, their nose being the size of our head, having scars on certain parts of their bodies, having dots all over their bodies, all these sorts of things. There really are many of these people, whether you see them or not. These people couldn’t have chosen how to be born, could they? Who could, anyways? Thus, scattered all over the world are also people with bad attitude or people who don’t think before they speak. In my opinion, one of the most common questions when these ‘unethical’ people come across a disabled individual is “EWW! What’s that?! How did it happen?” As much as the victim might ‘look’ grateful to answer the question, it’s kind of obvious to know that the very first word has already hurted the victim! Even though these people might be disabled, but don’t they deserve to have to right to be treated in a nicer way? Okay, talking about something you see in your daily life: somebody with a twisted ankle who has to walk with their feet pointed in different directions all the time. For example, there is a teacher in our school who has that kind of disability. Every time the teacher walks pass groups of students, the students stare at him/her. Isn’t it kind of rude? We’re lucky if the victim is nice enough. Some victims just suddenly lose confidence with just a few ‘unethical’ words spoken to them, and ‘poof,’ there goes their confidence. Some just lose their sense of belonging. Don’t people have any more ‘ethical’ ways to express their thoughts rather than hurting these people emotionally?
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"wow", that was a long one about ethics..hard to understand, but true =) sometimes it's hard for people to start step zero, right?
The world is getting hotter because of us!
You might not notice that our everyday life is making the Earth hotter and hotter everyday. Such as driving a car to work or using electricity in the house. The main reason that cause the Earth to heat up is the pollution that we cause.
All of us can prevent the world from getting hotter by using recycle materials and growing more trees can decrease the pollution. We can live more happily if everyone cooperate.
Response to "What is Ethics?"
True, I believe that to decide what is ethical or unethical is very complicated. What may be ethical to one person can be unethical to another person. Everyone has a different perspective point and personality, which indeed make us very different from each other. Some people value the values they want to get so much that what is unethical to the others is ethical to them. For example, a man values money. For whatever he does to gain money, it is ethical for him. If the man values money because his wife is sick and he needs money to buy medicine to cure her, is he ethical or unethical? Nevertheless, being ethical is a good behavior to have because there will be good side effects. Being unethical, in the other hand, can create a havoc.
Reaction to Mr. A’s post
Never know that ethics is both science and philosophy at the same time, that’s interesting. Ethics is a powerful tool to sort out good and bad. Especially in an organization because bad ethics can do a lot of damages to an organizational performance. The damage can be visible or invisible. It also block the organization from the reality of their bad environment. Good ethics have a positive effect. Communication, productivity, etc. are improved, risks are also reduced. Ethics was studied since ancient Greek by Greek philosophers. It is very important because it’s a very power tool. I also never know that good and bad ethics can cause lots of damage or lots of improvement to an organization.
Always think before you act..
This might look easy, but it's not until you are really doing it.
Please, always think about what you are going to say or do before you actually act it out. However, People do know about this but they aren't doing it, so they always forgot and regrets later in the end. Well, if you are saying something, let the words go through your mind first, because your words may hurt them or could be offensive to the person. This may cause consequences for the speaker and the listener. If you've spoken something offensive, you might not notice it, but actually you are already hurting other people. Furthermore, if you did something without careful planning, this might be even a more serious conflict comparing to something spoken. Instead of mentally injured, they will be physically injured as well. This will not only cause a problem to the injured person, it can also harm you. You might feel bad to what you've just done, you might not. If you dont think saying or doing something is appropriate at that time or situation, dont do it. Consider the following" What needs to be done and whats not".
This case was important to be brought up because we all know the fact " Think before you act", but are we realy doing it? Take a moment and ask yourself, have you done something that might hurt other people? If yes, you stop it, if not, your on the right track. So If you dont want yourself and the others to regret or feel bad, simply "Think before you act"!
A response to "What is Ethics"?
Literally, Ethics has several definitions. From here i got the rules in respect to human actions or to a particularly group. Therefore i totally agree with what was written in the frist paragraph. Ethics is a conduct, and it arises from human nature (natural body laws) from which man laws follows. Ethics are about behaviors and laws we need to follow. Furthermore, i would also like to respond to the last paragraph. Any group or society need ethics not just to prevent inappropriate behavior but to also understand why they should do something, and why they shouldn't do something. I realized how ethics has an impact reflecting our lives. In reality, several conducts and laws we need to follow, but laws are made to be broken. Not everyone knows the laws, but if you know, don't break it like someone who doesn't know. This quote is excellent "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form" by Oliver Wendell Holms. True, if you once experience something, and the next time experience some better, would you like to experience the first one if you had the choice to try the second one again? ofcourse, we choose the better one. No matter what an ethic is- a philosophy, a conduct, or rules, what does not change is that ethics improve individual and group performances, and it also tells us how to manage things.
Response to Mr.A...
It is so true that ETHICS is important in every aspects of our lives. I agree with the fact that change management needs ethics and ethics needs change management. Also, the idea that people who have their own values isn't always ethical;but i do believe that if someone is said to be ethical, the person must have some values in him/her that people admire or agreed with.
Response to Mr.A's post
It is true from the posting that the standard of ethical can be hard to determine. What values to one can be crap for others. But just like what we discuss in class today, who set the rules for the standards? If I valued my friends more and ignored my family, does that mean i'm not ethical? Since to me friends being the first place is logical, but maybe to other's family should be valued the most. If that the case, the argument of Aristotle can't convince me. However, I do agree that having good ethics and bad ethics can make a big difference in our life.
RESPOND POST::
Lets face it. Nobody can remain a good-two-shoe all the time. Once you’re in a desperate situation, there’s a very very very very rare chance that you’re going to remain ethical. Sometimes trying to be ethical to someone means being unethical to another. It all depends on the different point of views. As the society changes, what is unethical today might become ethical one day, simply because our society is getting worse and worse. Some unethical acts that we see these days could seem very normal to us in the future. I agree that poor ethics damages a society because nowadays, that’s just the way things are. No offense, but people these days are becoming more and more selfish, after all, people are born selfish. People no longer care about environment as a whole, but rather “What good is this environment going to do for me?” Very small amount of people try to make a difference for the environment without thinking about themselves. Some people these days try to behave ethically just for the sake of looking good in others’ eyes, but deep inside them are full of unethical thoughts that are grasping hold of them. You can’t just point at someone and say what they’re doing is ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’ nowadays. I guess you have to weigh their reasons. True, as you see in the news these days, people who seem ethical and have power over people like the government do unethical acts by corrupting. I’m just saying that to prove and trust that someone ethical is a lot harder than proving someone unethical. In other words, it’s so easy to be unethical, but so hard to prove to be ethical.
Respond of "What is Ethics"?
Ethics is a difficult word to understand, even after reading its definition. After reading, I am so curious about it, If ethics is man's creation for people to follow. But then, what is the standard of ethics, how do we determined bad and good, right and wrong, or what should we do and not to do. In the article it said ethics can help good ethics helps improve organizational performances , and help reduce damages. But then, shouldn't all people have the same value and understanding of ethics in order to collaborate with each other. However, why should ethics be created, so that people can act nice? In my option, I think ethics is like law; both of them act like a rope that ties around you, where for most people they like to break free, it is the same meaning of breaking them.
Since "ethics" is still a questioning subject, why people should follow them, and even learn them...
Our world's enviroment
Today many of us lives in a reasonable enviroment. Our parents are rich enough to buy a house for you to live, pay for an international school for you to study, and we grew up safely in this enviroment as a normal individual.
However, let's take a look at people living in different places of the world. Some families couldn't make a lot of money to afford their children's education, health care, or even living. Some families in Iraq grew up with threats around them, people bomb their village, people could get shot on the street, and etc.. Without education when the children grew up they might not get hired for a job, and it would be hard for them to survive.
Therefore, consider yourselves lucky enough to have a relatively good and secured enviroment. We might as well donate or service in the community to help those who needed our help.
Response
Ethic can be seen in many ways, it can be explained in many certain ways as well. Using it on other people, it also works. I agree that all citizens no matter male or female, young or old, they all can be an ethical person. Even like what the paragraph stated, murderers, criminals and liars have values. If a person has values, there are still spaces for them to change. It’s their decision of being an ethical person or not. Ethic is opened to anyone one of us in the word, not for certain people. In my opinion, I think ethic can be separated in levels. The good and the bad level. Yes, everyone is ethical, but NOT everyone is as ethical as any of them are. Ethic is human behavior, and human behavior is depended on a person’s mood and how that person reacts to a thing. Whenever a person is in a bad mood, the human behavior changes, and not everyone would do something bad when they are upset. Human behavior is important because many people would look at your behavior and state a conclusion on you whether this person is ethical or not.
What we are in now it’s a real society, parents always tells us what to do, or we should be planned and well prepared for our future, or for college. But many of us annoyed what they said, maybe not many of us, but few of us. This has been my problem since when I’m young. The decision’s only on our own whether we want it or not. Primary and secondary need. I could really mix both of them up. Sometimes secondary would come as primary and I would put aside the primary, which is like learning. I guess this is because I’m used to it which now caused a lack of responsibility. And that is what I wish to change and no waste my time anymore. Our future is depended on what decisions we make, any decision is better than no decisions at all. Make good of our lifetime, fulfill out life is what I think we should do.
What can I say...truly impressive first postings!!!
Almost all the ones who decided to make use of aliases have already informed me through my "valente@tcis.ac.th" e-mail who they are...THANK YOU! However, I have no confirmation yet coming from "DAI_LUCIFER", "SMILEDEVIL" and the "CHINESE/JAPANESE" character logo.
At the moment, 15 out of 18 have already posted...the last three will have until tomorrow...CIAO!!!
Mr. A
HAHAHA! I just got "SMILEDEVIL's" confirmation...and the other two are..........???
Mr. A
Respons to "What is Ethics?"
If a person was to post an entry like Mr. Aquino here without giving the citation of where it was taken from, people would say it is an unethical behaviour, for it is plagiarising. However, who is it that decides whether this behaviour is ethical or not? Within the post, ethics is defined as "a body of principles or standards of human conduct that govern the behaviour of individuals and groups", but who exactly defined these principles and standards? The post also states that ethics rose from human nature and man's creation. Humans are heavily effected by their environment. We are possible to determine good ethics and bad ethics because of our family backgrounds and how we are taught. However, if there was a family who taught their children bad ethics as good ethics and good ethics as bad ones. Their good ethical behaviours will be much different from ours, but who could blame them? they were brought up differently. In the post is says that good ethics is a strategic advantage in any business or organization. However, in the real world, some actions taken in business aren't exactly ethical, but how come some of those companies that take unethical actions earn more than those that do? For example, in the music industry, some companies may use payola in order to make their music popular. This, according to me and what i believe in, is a very unethical behaviour because you are putting off other people's chances of earning money, in other words cheating. However, still they earn a lot more money for their songs are heard more often than those from another industry. So how do we actually determine certain ethics being good or bad? As of my own opinion, there is a very thin line in ethics between good and bad.
I appologized of my mindless mistakes I have made (deleting the comment for 2 times~~!)
Please Enjoy reading
As Mr.A said “Don’t do it because you want the Grade, that would be meaning less” in today. This made me think about a book called “Success Built to Last”, which I have read during this summer.
Everyone are chasing for the success, but “what is Success?”
If you look at the dictionary, and the definition would written “the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.” If we look at the wealth, position, and honor, you will know that these are the most popular targets in a lot of people’s life. And no one really care about “the like”. So, when you reach one of the things that others call it success such as wealth, position, or honors. Will you be satisfied and happy after you reach those things?
The answer is “NO”. It is true that a lots of people whose completed their life’s goal as “My goal is to be rich, to be in high position, and win a lot of honor” had suffer from disorder and feeling unfulfilled about it. The most surprise things is, for those who had reach their goal, they even felt painful than before.
What’s wrong about it? Why do they still feel suffer after these?
Because things that they did were meaningless for themselves, after they complete all those meaningless stuffs, they can’t handle the things that they got. For me, I would explain it as the beast that trying to collect as much food as they can, and it can’t eat them all, and don’t know what to do for the rest.
“Success built to last” explains these things, but this will be completely different to common knowing about “success”
There are 3 properties that the “real Success” have
1. Meaningful goals: things that you love to do
2. Thinking style: the strong mental to handle the obstacles.
3. Action style: Being active.
Let’s talk about those who were interviewed in this book (Who have already achieved these things.). We will call them “Builder” from now on.
The meaningful goals: Builders always love what they do, they don’t even care about the income and the money they got. Money is important, but it’s not the goal of your life. It just like the blood and water in your body, it is important, but that’s not what you live for. Some people will claim that, we should work and find enough money first then do what you like to. In the opinions of Builders, the jobs itself is their own happiness. Warren Buffett (2nd rich in the world): I worried about those who said: “Hey! I will do this job for 10 years, even I don’t like it, but after 10 years I will….”. For me, this is just like using your own health to exchanged wealth while you’re young, and exchanged wealth to health back in older age.
Builders are builders because they choose what they love to in very beginning…
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. also said: “Life is short, so don’t waste your time to do what other’s expect you to do, but do what you expected. Don’t let other’s attitude to swallow up the scream in your mind. The most important things are you should have the braveness to follow your own intention and intuition. They (intention and intuition) always know what you really want to do. Others are not as important.”
Please examine yourself: “Are you living in what others expect you to do, or living in what you truly want to do?” This will be the first step to make your life better after you have figure this out.
There were so much thing I want to write more about, and so much incomplete things I want to explain, but it would be easier if you buy one “Success built to last by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson” Product by Wharton University of Pennsylvania.
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The article reminds me the next essay that I plan to post next week, but I will write it briefly here.
What’s so important about the ethic? And what is Unethical ethic? As it discuss in the paragraph, unhealthy value cause unethical action. So, what causes the unhealthy value? The unhealthy value came from when the need of a person is not satisfied. For example, you cannot convince a really starve guy to stop stealing food or the only way he can live unless you provide enough food for him.
This is based on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which I think is very reliable. It explains human’s need had divided into 5 levels. 1. Food 2. safety 3. love and belonging 4. self-esteem 5. Self actualization (which include moral). It explains that the lower need you have, the more chance you will have the unhealthy value and mental. If you don’t satisfy your hunger, you would do anything for food. If you don’t feel safety of surrounding, you would be easily feared by anything, (ex: students who chase for good collage and occupation blindly and read for GPA because they felt unsafe about their future.) Feeling not belong to anyone, any society or loved by someone would made you felt you’re worthless to live. Without self esteem, you would afraid to do anything.
It is not going step by step, each level of need support each other, such as the belongingness supports your self esteem. However, it is not necessary to satisfy each level completely, but it will be easier to build up the next level if you have enough basic level. You can also build up THE NEXT LEVEL through THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE LEARNED. And this is what ETHICS’ jobs to teach us the right information.
For example, a disorder murder kill an innocent guy to built up his confidence, if that murder know the other way to build up his own self esteem correctly (such as trying hard on what he loves), he will not ends up with killing a person.
Most importantly, this theory is also point out one thing. Everyone have their own freewill to be better or be worse. It is up to your choice.
Response to “What is Ethics?”
After reading and trying to understand what ethics is, I started to realize how important ethics is. Ethics is from human nature, and it is also both science and philosophy (by the way, I just knew that it was science, a little bit surprising). Therefore, ethics had been discussed for a long time since the Greek philosophers. I also agreed on the fact that ethics could not rely on values. Because everyone has values, even a murderer, but he is not ethical. It is hard to say which is ethical and which is unethical because we have different values; we view things differently. Therefore, there is no standard to qualify ethics. Ethics is connected to management and it can lead to many consequences. If it is good ethics, then we are developing; if it is poor ethics, then our society is damaged. This is also relating to our decision making. We can choose to be ethical or unethical, not only ethical in our point of view, but be ethical as a general (laws that everyone accepts to be ethical). Let’s go back to the beginning; ethics is from human nature, so it means that everyone is ethical in their own way because at least they have their values. That’s called “nature”! Then, “nurture” starts to come. The people, environment, and media are influencing our values, our ethics. So, now, we start to develop. Just like the last sentence of the passage, the real ethics is to use it to improve individual and group performance.
Response to Mr.’s post...by Kevin
I never thought a person can define the word ethics in such a detail and multi perspective way. Yes I believe we can view ethics in many ways. Like what was mentioned in paragraph 2 ethics could be a philosophy that philosophers argued through out history, or it could be view as normative science. Every one of us has his/her own ethics point of view. As long as our value of ethics is positive, I think there's not only one definition of ethics. We all can make mistakes and do the wrong thing. I agree with the paragraph that "we are all capable of the best and worst ethics at any time. Therefore, step zero in one's ethics education begins with recognizing the inherently high ethical error rate in us all" Which means we should know our ethical error in yourself first before we actually learn ethics.
--Response to "What is Ethics?"--
I suppose, that even until now, the definition of ethics is still confused to most of the people. Every single person has own interpretations of what ethics is. No one can be certain of whether one is being unethical or ethical, simply because it has been a vague topic to identify. Ethics include morals, values, and decisions. Ethics is about right and wrong, the principles of behaviors. Morals fall under ethics because morals are also about right and wrong; it is hard to segregate ethics and morals. Honestly, i haven't truly get the meanings and differences between these two words too. Another confusing term, values. I personally do not think valuse are just values under the topic of ethics. The values of something doesn't relate to ethics straight forwardly. Values of objects don't really interfere with how one's ethcis are formed or what one's ethics are. I also wondered about what good ethics and bad ethics are. I don't think one abandoning a dog because one hopes to bring back the new lonely puppy home is a good ethic and ethical. Often, a decision seems to be benefitial and ethical to one side, but how about the other side? Perhaps the decision is teriible and unethical to the other side. I believe, in the up coming future classes we have, we will get to clear up the definitions of ethics, and will get deep into the discussions of what is ethical and what is not. :)
Responds to "What is Ethics?"
Ethic could be defined in many several ways; it simply depends on one's point of view.
After reading Mr.A's post, I found out that ethic is an important attitude. Ethic may be a behavior of high standard. However, on the other hand, one's thoughts could also be a bad thing that would affect our community. He/she would have to learn to separate the good from the bad, and the right from the wrong.
Form what the article said, ethic is shown in the human nature. I think this statement solves the quesiton that we have in class. If ethic was shown within human nature, then, human aren't born bad. Also what Oliver Wendell Holms wrote, "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its original form." Onces someone "really" learns something, that thing will forever lives in ones mind.
im posting this for DELTONE...
response to Mr. A's post
Ethics is more than I think it is. I agree that ethics is a hard topic to decide whether something is good of bad in someone's point of view. However, I'm very curious about why do they have to argue about it. I personally think it is hard, but if we don't think about it too much, there is nothing complicated about it. Ethics is jus "ethics" and everyone's thoughts are not the same. I think that the human brain is way more complicated than science-explained-theory shows us. In my opinion, it also consists of some kind of spirital thingamagigy which we don't know for sure what is it. To conclude, if it was me... I would just forget about what other people think is good and bad. I would only care what is good and bad in my opinion. That's why there are consequences included in the laws. If something good for me is bad for the majority, I will just receive the consequences. Eventhough someone says, "but that's not fair!!" I still value that as an opinion and not the majority.
PS: jus in case the mail doesn't get to u..
Response to "What is Ethics?"
Wow!!! I learn so many things about ethics. Such as, ethics have many different meaning depend how you use them. Ethics can be both good or bad. Ethics is consider to be a normative science too. Right now people are still arguing whether ethics is good or bad. In my opinion, ethics can be both good or bad depend on how people are using it.
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