Personal Values And Morals: Factors That Form Individual Ethics (Essay Sample)

    INSTRUCTIONS

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1.0  Introduction   Ethics refers to a branch of philosophy that involves the basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent human conduct. It involves systemizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct, through the study of universal values such as human or natural rights, equality among men and women, concern for health and safety, obedience to the land law, as well as the natural environment that governs all. By defining concepts such as good and evil, virtue and vice, right and wrong, justice and crime, ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality (Fandt, 1994). Basically, ethics is a system of moral principles, which seeks to address issues related to concepts of right and wrong. They are the rules of conduct that affect how people make decisions as they distinguish what is right from what is wrong. According to Islamic context, “khuluq” is the term most closely related to ethics in the Qur’an.   The four subject areas within ethics recognized today are as follows: 1.1  Meta-ethics It aims to understand the theoretical meaning of moral propositions, the origins of ethical principles and the references as well as the nature of ethical evaluations or moral judgement (Bennett, 1993).   1.2  Descriptive ethics It involves the moral philosophy of determining what proportion of the population considers something is right or wrong (Norman, 1998).   1.3  Normative ethics It is referred to as moral theory, as it is concerned with the content of moral judgements and the criteria for what is right or wrong (Geulincx et al., 2006). It focuses on how a moral course of action or how moral values are determined, and what should be done for it to be considered as the right conduct.
1.4  Applied ethics It is concerned with what a person is obliged/permitted to do in a particular domain of action. Applied ethics examines controversial issues like animal rights, abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, war, etc. (Instilling Values in Transcending Generations, 2010). It applies ethical theories to real life situations. There is no simple as to whether something is right or wrong, as ethical issues tend to be multi-faceted; and for which there are significant groups of people who are either for or against them. This is also linked to the medical and nursing ethics and bioethics where ethical issues arise in connections with the advances in biology and medicine.   The factors that form individual ethics are as follows: (i)     Family Influences (ii)  Peer Influences (iii)                       Personal Values and Morals   2.0  Factors that form individual ethics   2.1  Family Influences From the day we were born, we spend most of our time with our parents, as they are the ones who we socialize with the most. As a baby, we learn things by mimicking everything that people around us do, especially our parents. Eventually, we start to develop our own sense as we grow up, mimicking everything from eating, walking or talking habits up to the way our parents evaluate and see things. Every action that our parents did has affected us directly, hence forming our personal ethics in the process.   Parents are typically the first to voice and demonstrate ethical boundaries towards their children even if they cannot dictate morality. As parents, they consider it as one of their critical jobs to instill a strong sense of justice, or in this case, a sense of right and wrong in their children. Children will absorb their family’s actions and respond to their perception of their parents’ or family’s behaviors since childhood. Individuals will then start to form ethical standards as it contributes heavily to their sense of morality. Thus, parents play an important role in being the moral guidance of their children’s life. For an example, when the child sees his/her family members adhering to high ethical standards like being honest and truthful, the child is more likely to adopt the virtue of honesty as well as high ethical standards in the future.   However, the children are most likely to develop a lower ethical standard if their family members are engaging in unethical behaviors and allowing the children to do the same. For example, some parents will send their children late for school and this in turn cause their children to not practice punctuality when they grow up later in life.   2.1.1        Example 1 There were many mango trees in my surrounding neighborhood and they were mostly planted outside the house by the owner; the mangoes can be easily reached and picked by passersby. My neighbor Mr. Lim, whenever he passed by these mango trees, would pick up the mangoes and take them back home. These mangoes are not his and he did not ask permission before picking them, thus making this a wrong conduct. His son, Jason saw what he did and began to mimic his father’s actions. Whenever Jason passed by the trees, he would pick the mangoes and take them back home as well. Mr. Lim has directly influenced his son and due to his father’s influences, Jason has developed lower ethical standards.   2.1.2        Example 2 My younger brother is very close to my father and my brother would follow him wherever he goes. However, my father has a bad habit which is he likes to spit. He would spit anywhere he likes and my brother started doing the same after seeing my father’s actions. My brother would spit anywhere without concern about the surroundings because in his perception, nothing is wrong with spitting and that it is normal. Due to this result, my brother has developed lower ethical standards because he adopted this habit from my father.
2.1.3        Example 3 My neighbor,...