What is ethics and how do we manage ethics?

Question

I am writing a paper on ethics. I was hoping to get some opinions to include showing the wide range of opinions people have on the definition of ethics. Also how to manage ethics??? I would greatly appreciate your responses.

Answer 1

Ethics is a set of rules of behavior that help people cooperate.

Altruism is not required to explain ethics.  There is a way to explain why one would follow most ethical rules by pretending that the individual is selfish.  

example:

One person does not kill another person because the one person does not want others to kill the one person.  The one person derives a benefit from following the rule.

Mentors pass on the ethical rules that have been learned through trial and error by past generations.  Examples of mentors are parents and other relatives, Nannies and teachers, ministers, priests, imams and rabbis.  

Some professions have their own set of ethical rules. To the uninitiated some of these rules seem to be counter intuitive but remember that only the rules that have resulted in positive outcomes have survived.  The rules of one community may be incompatible with the rules of another community.  Our choice in the United States to value diversity exposes us to conflicting ethical standards.  Only through the majority of people learning about the ethical standards of others can we find a way for us to live together.

Answer 2

Ethics are little green men who come in the night and stuff tubes in your orifices and take samples.

They are researching the ethics of asking people online to do your homework for you.

Answer 3

"The Path of Virtue," Jonathan Murro, has many wisdom quotes from the world's ethical traditions.

A general opinion:  ethics is how you behave given rationality and transparency.

Hobbes is perhaps the best example of ethics developing within rationality and transparency, accountability and "enlightened self interest."

Empathy and charity are further, Maslowian developments from "deficit ethics" to "Self-actualization ethics."  Saint Paul and Kierkegaard exemplify this; Kierkegaard's "Aesthetic sphere" of existential nowness is brought into "deficit ethics" by Hobbes; Kierkegaard's "Ethic Sphere" is Maslowian, reflective.  With these two, the "Spiritual" or "Religious sphere" is the Jacobean "God is in this place, with us" step of Self-realization.  Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi" exemplifies this divine Love.

Answer 4

Ethics is a code of conduct, and the ability to follow it.

Ethics is managed differently for different circumstances.  The ethics of complying to a communal law, for example, is done not because one necessarily agrees with the law, but because one regards mutual cooperation with others as an ethical goal.  There are many opportunities to compromise this level of ethics, since not all violations of a law result in a violation of communal benefit.  This is why we feel no guilt complex for speeding on the freeway.  Assuming we didn't hit someone, we complied with the ethical intent of the law despite violating a code of compliance.  On the opposite end of the spectrum would be the ethics of personal conviction, where one's personal code of conduct is not easily compromised, and weighs on our conscious when violated.  The management of ethics would be defined in the capability and wisdom of compromise when one set of ethical direction conflicts with another, like when a law is passed that is the opposite of personal conviction.

Answer 5

Ethics is a method of achieving an honest relationship between organizations or companies and the general public. Ethics are usually (but not always) a written code that is managed through the use of penalties such as censure or banishment from the organization.  Mostly ethics relies on the individual for enforcement.

Ethics takes what is law and turns it into a practical methodology by interpreting those laws to fit the circumstances.  Basically, ethics are a way to keep people away from the appearance of evil, if I may use a biblical phrase.

Answer 6

i think a perfect example of ethics is the golden rule; do onto others as you would have them do on to you.