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Date Posted: 20:33:47 06/26/01 Tue
Author: Shinkou Doragon
Subject: Ethics (I've really gotten bored)

Ethic’s, such a powerful word. Easily it encompasses many singular notions, each by themselves an important part, if not an absolute necessity to human nature as we know it. Honor, loyalty, and morals make up most of what we call our ethics: how one lives their life, the values they hold and how they make their decisions. It’s not surprising then that we often question a criminal’s ethics as much as we may question the ethics portrayed by our heroes. Often this is most evident by simple questions over motivation, desire, and even necessity. Though to slip off on a minor tangent, it’s not what is wrong within a given unrepentant criminal’s life that would suggest that what he did was right. The question lies with where he learned his values, his –ethics- if you will; as well as why did he choose the values he did over a social norm?
Each of us have a set of values in life, our basic truths of action. What is right, what is wrong, is this the way things should be done, are my intentions in the right place. All of these are basic questions about our ethics. A series of questions that reveal to us what we hold to be important in life, these reveal our ethic’s, our idea as to how one’s life should be lived. As individuals we are different, and so is each persons set of ethics.
What is honor? Is it keeping one’s promises? How about staying true to one self? Is it the ability to justify any of one’s actions? Honor in a simple definition is the mark of courage within one to stay honest with him self and others, it is as much a mark of courage as it is a mark of being humble. It is one’s capability to act and not regret that action, to act swiftly without fear of repercussion. Honor is the ability to live with one self and never sway from his chosen path. To each honor is different, and as such even the wicked would have honor, though it may be twisted it is honor. As a platform and pillar of ethics, it would guide us to never sway as an individual and stay the path through to the end. Without honor we could not have loyalty.
Within ethics is a drive to remain true to others, remain at their side through thick and thin, or at least till they have served their purpose. This is the measure of loyalty. Ones sense of desire to remain true and committed to another, or lack thereof. As one of the cornerstones of our personal ethics it is often one of our strongest or perhaps weakest traits, depending on the individual. It is taught and learned by each of us from childhood. We are raised to stay by the sides of our true friends, to always be honest. Of course, that sense can be perverted by a number of possible acts, such as: parental actions, society, media, and yes infidelity. Strength or lack thereof will shape one’s life, their view of right and wrong, shaping it healthily or twisting it into a mad man’s playhouse.
Without the current views of what honor and loyalty are, we would never come to a full paradigm as to what morals are. Though it is as much a necessity to know what loyalty and honor are to know what morals are as it is to know what our morals are to understand loyalty and honor. Morals are the foundation, the necessary building blocks of honor and loyalty. But that leaves an unanswered question, what are morals? A simple enough question, but it has a most complicated answer. Morals are the values and drives we learn in life, as children, as adolescents and as adults. They govern what right and wrong is, legal and illegal, what the proper course of action is in any given moment, they govern these as much as morals govern our sense of loyalty and honor. Morals are yes, the essential part of our ethics, but at the same time is no more important than honor and loyalty. Morals must walk hand in hand with honor and loyalty, the three of them entwining to make up our ethics.
If our ethics are no more than learned behavior, then it would come at no surprise that each persons sense of ethics is as different as our fingerprints. What one sees to be the proper way may be no better than another, no matter how different the two may be, to that individual it is the right way. Going back to the argument of a criminal, to him what he did at the moment was the right thing, he can himself justify it as well as any normal person can justify any action they may perform. But where do we learn our ethics? We derive our ethics from a number of sources; parents, peers, idols, television, music, movies, and religion. Each will influence our decisions though we may deny it.
The baseline of our ethics is often learned from one’s parents, a general sense of right and wrong, good and bad. What behavior is acceptable and what is not. Our ethics are comprised of ideals as minute as table manners to the broad ball field of how to treat others. Who hasn’t heard the old line: treat others as you wish to be treated. That is an excellent example of teaching ethics, and it is a very common ideal shared amongst society as a whole. Often our parents will try and guide us in the proper direction, often towards an ideal lifestyle, this too will shape our ethics. It shapes our motivation to achieve, to always go the extra distance to succeed at life’s challenges, it is an intricate piece to a greater whole that is our idea of achieving a goal. Just as a thief may see stealing as his way of acquiring that which he desires, a salesman will wheel and deal to get his daily commission. Ethics in motion again.
You see an attractive member of the opposite sex walk by us on the street while out with our friends; the first instinct may be to approach them and ask for their name, age, make a little small talk and eventually get a phone number or date. After all that may be how we were raised. But we also hear our friends edging us; go on, talk some game, get the number, or any number of other comments, perhaps even some lude suggestions. We may go up and ask nicely or be straight forward and perhaps a little brunt with comments and requests. In essence our friends shape how we may approach someone and treat them, again ethics learned or modified by outside influences, this time our peers.
Music, television, and movies; each of these are a great supplier of ethical influence. It may desensitize us to violence, show us the power of great emotion, provide insight into one’s drive to accomplish or actions but media is in this day and age the single most powerful influence on the ethics held today as the social norm. Each and everyone of us add, modify or remove certain principles we hold as person truths and ethical justification for actions, and it could all be due to a song we hear, a movie we watch or the evening news. It will influence us, whether great or small. Something will always change.
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes other than change; life will turn to death and death once more to life. This is the way things are, for when things stop changing, man will have finally run his course as the dominant species. Change and adaptation, man must adapt to survive, whether that survival is from society or from nature. Our survival will depend on change and in the case of society that change will be in what ethics are viewed as the basis for proper behavior, they are the unwritten laws of action, and consequence. While ethics will change with society, it will remain that how one is viewed will be a sum total of their views, ethics, and sadly race. It is as simple as a man making the transition from boy to adult. Society will always be the final judgment as to whether a particular ethical principle is merely an outdated tradition, a –pop culture- norm, or a new paradigm. And with us in a total state of flux, what is ethical today may not be ethical tomorrow, two days from now or even two years from now

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