Ethics are shaped through our early upbringing, behavior of those around us, cultural standards, experiences and our response to those experiences. The text mentions that the law, religion, and ethical relativism are also sources of ethics. Parental reinforcement on what is right and wrong and acceptable and unacceptable behavior during our early upbringing lays the foundation for how we go about living our lives as we grow up. The environment and how others around us behave have an impact on what we consider ethical through the daily choices that we make. Our culture contributes to the development of our ethics of what actions we think are justifiable. What may seem wrong in one culture may be justified in another. Laws can help us to decide what is bad and good behavior. Religion provides incentives to behave ethically and guidance on what is considered ethical.
The primary sources for us to develop our ethical position are the culture or environment around us and our experiences. Culture and environment exposes us to certain standards of life and when that is what we are surrounded by every day, those ethics become instilled in us as the ethics our parents instilled in us are. Through our life experiences, we reflect and can either decide we want to change the way we handled a situation or stick to what we thought was the ethical thing to do. As we experience life and are exposed to certain environments and cultures, we develop our own set of ethics.
3 Comments for “M1 (Duffield)”
savise
says:Hi Kim. I agree with you on your views of ethics. I strongly believe we are influenced by our environment and those in it. I also agree that religion serves as a guide for the community to have a good moral set. In our business ethics book, William H. Shaw was talking about how most people believe that morality is based on religion. He stated “atheists generally live lives as moral and upright as those of believers (Shaw pg 12).” This shows that whether a individual is religious or not, both sides are capable of having a strong moral compass. This quote is interesting because some believers think that an atheist is immoral.
Citiation: Shaw, William H. Business Ethics. 9th ed, Cengage Learning, 2017
savise
says:Oh no, I clicked submit forgetting to spell check my citation. I apologize, I spelled citation wrong.
ngsanches
says:I strongly agree with what you have to say here. Early upbringing and the behavior of the people closest to us and around us every day are certainly the biggest influences on our ethical standpoint. I also thought your point about religion was a very good one. Having been brought up in a family that didn’t really adhere to a religion, I’ve never thought of religion as an ethical influence. It certainly can be, and I’m glad I read your post and gained a greater understanding of that.