SELF-REFLECTION ON VALUES AND ETHICS (Essay Sample)

Self-Reflection on Values and Ethics Insert Your Name Here: Institute Affiliation: Self-Reflection on Values and Ethics In my upbringing, my parents thought that their core responsibility was to ensure all their children were fed, clothed, loved, safe, warm and feared God in an approach that our personal needs were satisfied. My parents devoted to providing me with classical piano lessons, several years on jazz and classical ballet. All this sacrifice was after the provision of the basic needs were met. The doctrine of this discipline has extrapolated into all the aspects in my life. Through the years, I have learned to filter everything through the perspective sift of my core beliefs and values to tolerate the principles of science and life. This personal reflection essay on values and ethics reflects my beliefs in relation to my family and religion and purpose. It then translates into how my values inform my decisions and shape the way I live. The paper also describes the person I am today and the one I would like to become in future. Spiritually, I have explored through formal involvement and indoctrinations into Catholicism, self- realization and Christianity in general. I now understand the teachings of Jesus Christ and realize that my explorations seek to exalt God. I pondered my belief system and discovered that I have a core belief that there only exist one all-knowing, powerful, and immortal God (Cline & Cline, 2015). He expresses Himself in every place, all persons and even in my classical music, cyclic, and its rhythmic effects. I also realize that everyone has a purpose of life and that self expression and discipline are the true activities that matter most in life. I have also come to believe that every individual has the power upon him or herself to do the right thing. Everyone possesses the power to heal her or himself by tackling their challenges. I believe in my potential as a person and the infinite possibilities of human consciousness. God made man in His own image, and so do I equate myself to God in terms of my potential as a human. All human beings are endowed with the right to fulfill their lives in accordance with their core choices and beliefs. As such, I align my principles with the main core beliefs of ethics and the values I believe in. The salient things in my life are my purpose, faith and family. The hierarchy of my values encompasses, actualizing and realizing my belief. I also dedicate myself towards helping others on their own self actualization, self discovery and self mastery although honesty, empathy, openness, compassion, and sharing of the lessons learned. My objective is to contribute to the world and have a positive impact to its inhabitants. However, am much aware of the good things that can be of greater use to the society might not be as well best for me. (Williams, 2006) argued that people, who stick to the notion of protecting the interests of the minority in a population, may be the cause for the majority not attaining their deserved good life. I consider ethics to be either wrong or right, in the case of behavior. The personality traits that are used to get power cause the person to be unethical since they have the self belief that allows them to make wrong choices. The same would however, be said to one with willpower and high vigor. I believe that agreeableness, openness, and surgency to be some of the personality traits that can fit on both sides of ethics. I see my development according to Kohlberg, as one that is sequential and invariant. I have gone through the stages in order and, as a result, am able to incorporate the experiences and to think of all my past reasoning into the current state of thinking. (Munsey, 1980) said that expecting one to grow overnight into high moral adulthood would be like expecting a child to stroll before he crawls. Two theories are reflective and consistent with my own beliefs and lend a hand in making my ethical decisions. This two are the deontological ethics and the virtue ethics. Immanuel Kant suggested that standards of rationality are the basis of moral requirements (Johnson, 2012). His moral philosophies all encompass the two theories, deontological and virtue ethics. I strongly believe that my upbringing as a Catholic believer together with my individual experiences helped me follow these theories and align them to my value system. I find my personal values and ethics very straightforward to understand. I ask myself questions before I make decisions. Some of them are; is what am doing or about to do wrong or right? Does what I do have some impact to my character? Is it helpful to anyone? I keep on scrutinizing these questions until I figure what best act is right to tackle the situation (Antiessays.com, 2015). The deontological ethical theories are based on duties and on several moral obligations that are evident and are inherently right or wrong rather than good (Bennet-Woods, 2005). This duty-based ethic focuses on the act more willingly than the consequences. Following this ethical paradigm makes you attach importance to the virtue that comes with doing your obligation. I moreover believe that in everything you undertake you have to question yourself of whether it is ethically or morally right. My parents, the priest, and the society, in general, made me understand that our duties, obligations and rules are determined by God. When we pursue our duty we are in essence behaving morally. All the same we immorally behave when we don’t follow our duty (Cline & Cline, 2015). I do my duties with the assumption that am doing what am required to do, and do it with happiness. Right since I was born, the value of critically analyzing situations before making a decision was instilled in me. More often than not would my parents ask me if I bothered thinking about the implications of my actions beforehand? They always insisted to us the importance of caring about whatever we did. They said choices had consequences. For one to do whatever was right, then he or she had to critically question and analyze the situation before hand. This of course came to my conscious as I grew up and slowly began to synthesize its importance. The curriculum in school also ensured that students always had to think prior to responding to questions or other particular challenges. They always said a well thought of act is the better version of one self. The Catholic religion taught me of the importance of caring for others as much as I cared for myself. You can only care about others if only you think of the consequences your actions will have on them. This belief instilled in me helps me ethically handle situations and in making decisions. There are various ways in which my values influence ...