how will u define ethics? Is it possible for some one to teach ethics ? if so how?

Question

If ethics isdoing something which is right . Then what is right?

Answer 1

Ethics are action that are fair. Now have to deceived what is fair in any action you do. You can always guide people if they are not fair in their action.

Answer 2

Ethics are more simple than doing what is right. Ethics are doing things that do not hurt and possibly help others.

Examples include:

1. Not pushing hot water into a river. It is simple science that hot water kills cold water fish.
2. Not allowing smoke stacks to pollute freely. Look at any smoke stack on any factory and think about the pollution.
3. Not throwing garbage out of your car window. Look on your own street at what you have to clean up.

Those are examples that do not even require knowing right from wrong. They just require considering your own circumstances.

In Boy Scouts we have a standard for camping that we will leave the campsite cleaner than how we found it. That is the ethical thing to do.

Can you teach ethics? Absolutely. You teach people to take care of the environment and other people. If everyone considers their environment a priority they will live ethically.

Take care,
Troy

Answer 3

Obviously, ethics is very much cultural specific. Culture is certainly taught, in a variety of settings, informally and fornally.

For example, when my great granda was young, it was considered "ethically" acceptable to not associate with somebody who was black. My great uncle had associates working for the embassies of some African country and was not allowed to bring them home.

In some countries, this is still the case. In Saudi Arabia for instance, it is acceptable to treat one differently because of faith. In China, it is o.k. to charge someone more because of where they are from.

Murder is a pretty universal crime. Honesty is generally considered to be a sign of good ethics in most cultures, etc.

So there are values that are highly culturally defined and others that are pretty close to universal. Sometimes, the "unversal" ones are applied only to one of one's designated group.

(For example, in a slave or racist society, in a society ruled by aristocrats, etc.)

Religions like Christianity and Islam believe in absolute ethics, which tends to mean following the way of God. Of course, people argue on what that is, so its still rather relative.

That said, it is all taught.

Answer 4

I believe that someone can teach what ethics is, but cannot teach you to have it. Either you have it or you don't. What they could teach is how to properly determine what the most ethical course of action would be in a given situation.

Answer 5

My dear V.J. Your question is very interesting!
If you define your soul, you can define ethics. Are you teaching your soul ? Does your heart learn how to beat ? Does your lung learn how to breath. Ethic is like that. You can learn and practice your self. Ethic is like air. You can not see, you can not taste it. Only "humans" can practice ethics. If you living your life with ethics than you must realized that how important it is.

Answer 6

ethics is good and right ...and good things are right in this case what is right is good

Answer 7

Doing anything which would harm anyone, or any animals, or the natural
order of things would be unethical. It's easy .....Do No Harm.

Answer 8

Ethics is defined as a science of morals. It is a treatise on morals, dealing with human character and conduct.
A few years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following:


"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."
"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."
"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."
"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."
"I don't know what the word means."


These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.

Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.

Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.

Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.

Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.

What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well founded reasons.

Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

This article appeared originally in Issues in Ethics IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987)