Fluent Essays

Week 8 Discussion Must   post first. How to Do Well in Discussions · Respond to the specific questions posed   in the discussion. · Be sure to base your initial post and responses on course materials, and use 7th ed. APA citations in every post. · Post your responses over three days and you respond to more than two students to receive full credit for frequency of   participation. · Write clearly and proofread; errors can   lose you points. · Quality of posts, citations, frequency,   and timeliness of posts all factor into your discussion grade. See the   Participation Grading Rubric for details. Discussion   #1 Review and reflect on what you learned in   the past 8 weeks.   Please answer the following: · What was the hardest to grasp?  Why?     · What is the most practical and easily   applied lesson you learned? · Which concepts or theories can you apply directly to your current work or personal situation? You   must start a thread before you can read and reply to other threadsA Framework for Thinking Ethically This document is designed as an introduction to thinking ethically. We all have an image of our better selves-of how we are when we act ethically or are at our best. We probably also have an image of what an ethical community, an ethical business, an ethical government, or an ethical society should be. Ethics really has to do with all these levels-acting ethically as individuals, creating ethical organizations and governments, and making our society as a whole ethical in the way it treats everyone. What is Ethics? Simply stated, ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on. It is helpful to identify what ethics is NOT: • Ethics is not the same as feelings. Feelings provide important information for our ethical choices. Some people have highly developed habits that make them feel bad when they do something wrong, but many people feel good even though they are doing something wrong. And often our feelings will tell us it is uncomfortable to do the right thing if it is hard. • Ethics is not religion. Many people are not religious, but ethics applies to everyone. Most religions do advocate high ethical standards but sometimes do not address all the types of problems we face. • Ethics is not following the law. A good system of law does incorporate many ethical standards, but law can deviate from what is ethical. Law can become ethically corrupt, as some totalitarian regimes have made it. Law can be a function of power alone and designed to serve the interests of narrow groups. Law may have a difficult time designing or enforcing standards in some important areas, and may be slow to address new problems. • Ethics is not following culturally accepted norms. Some cultures are quite ethical, but others become corrupt -or blind to certain ethical concerns (as the United States was to slavery before the Civil War). When in Rome, do as the Romans do is not a satisfactory ethical standard. • Ethics is not science. Social and natural science can provide important data to help us make better ethical choices. But science alone does not tell us what we ought to do. Science may provide an explanation for what humans are like. But ethics provides reasons for how humans ought to act. And just because something is scientifically or technologically possible, it may not be ethical to do it. Why Identifying Ethical Standards is Hard There are two fundamental problems in identifying the ethical standards we are to follow: 1. On what do we base our ethical standards? 2. How do those standards get applied to specific situations we face? If our ethics are not based on feelings, religion, law, accepted social practice, or science, what are they based on? Many philosophers and ethicists have helped us answer this critical question. They have suggested