Ethics?

[wilsontheterrible]

Ethics play a pretty big role in my life. I've got my own set of personal standards I live up to but I've also got a whole slew of others. I'm an auditor so I need to follow GAAP (the accountants bible) to the letter or I lose my job. I'm an Eagle Scout so I have to live up to certain expectations and repeat an oath every time I go to my cousin's meetings. And I've got some religious standards that I won't bore anybody with.

Now that I've got a stable job and I'm not running around trying to balance work, school, and bills I've been able to get out more and I'm finding it really hard to take other people my age seriously, and it's not just the U.S either. My counterparts in Europe are especially bad, love your countries guys but I've never seen so much BS guesswork on a balance sheet in my life. My job has taken me a lot of places and the common feature is that it appears the whole world's give-a-&#$% is broken.

So the question is, what role do ethics play in your life? Whether it's personal, professional, or otherwise.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Strange subject since everyone is subject to their own ethics.

Every decision i make has to pass my ethics on the way to realisation so ethics play a fundamental part in my life. I don't know what else to add really

 

[3AM]

Ethics play a large role in my life. In my work I have access to sensitive, personal data. I can look, but I don't. There's a lot of unethical people in the world and I can't change them but I do keep my corner of it clean.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Ethics play a pretty big role in my life. I've got my own set of personal standards I live up to but I've also got a whole slew of others. I'm an auditor so I need to follow GAAP (the accountants bible) to the letter or I lose my job. I'm an Eagle Scout so I have to live up to certain expectations and repeat an oath every time I go to my cousin's meetings. And I've got some religious standards that I won't bore anybody with.

Now that I've got a stable job and I'm not running around trying to balance work, school, and bills I've been able to get out more and I'm finding it really hard to take other people my age seriously, and it's not just the U.S either. My counterparts in Europe are especially bad, love your countries guys but I've never seen so much BS guesswork on a balance sheet in my life. My job has taken me a lot of places and the common feature is that it appears the whole world's give-a-&#$% is broken.

So the question is, what role do ethics play in your life? Whether it's personal, professional, or otherwise.

I'm usually selfish, so no ethics here, but when I plan something and require the aid of some I tend to develop some ethics that help me in my ultimate goal. Which is world domination.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

Ah, ethics. Let's see. I'd say ethics play a pretty big role in how I roll...

Professionally: I'm looking into becoming a technical writer. Before that, I studied engineering. Ethics are rather huge in both of those professions. I mean, I took an entire course in engineering ethics.

Personally: I live by a rather strict moral code of my own make. I do what feels "good" for me to do. (A friend of mine summed it up as, "So, pretty much, you're Neutral Good." Which, I suppose, is close enough.) I can't stand it when people don't act ethically or morally. I just... ugh.

So... yeah, that's my stance.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Everything I do, I do in my interest. So if I'm kind to you, it's because I think I'll get something out of it.

 

[Deschamps]

I'm usually selfish, so no ethics here, but when I plan something and require the aid of some I tend to develop some ethics that help me in my ultimate goal. Which is world domination.

While you're clearly joking (at least about the world domination part) this does help me bring up one way of looking at ethics: Our ethics and moral codes are the ones that allowed us to survive and evolve. When you realize that other people are more likely to help you if they are happy, then your ethics will form themselves around realizing that goal.

As for myself, being a student, I pride myself in being able to achieve good marks on my own merit. I know plenty of people who get good marks through less than honest means, and I have very little respect for many of them.

Admittedly, my personal definition of "academic integrity" is much stricter than how a university officially defines it.

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

i murdered someone for 20 bucks. oops.



xD joking aside, ethics are important in my own life. I was raised christian, although i dont believe. I personally believe in being a good person, helping those that i can, and being upright. I have my failures and my kinks so im far from perfect, but i like to believe i lead a good life.

 

[Mr Thin]

Spoiler: Small story, if you're interested.

I was at a party once, as a child. It was at night, there was a pool, and the children (myself included) were running around the edge. Not terribly wise, but not terribly dangerous either.

One of the smaller children (he would've been about 5 or 6) fell into the pool right next to me. He couldn't swim. I immediately dropped to my knees and reached for him. His mother was only a second behind me, diving straight into the pool and pulling him out. My attempt was therefore unnecessary, but it's the thought that counts, surely.

Only the 'thought' that first entered my head was not "A drowning child! I must save him!" or "I have to save my friend!" or "I have to do the right thing!". It was more along the lines of "If I pull him out, I'll look good and feel awesome!". Sure enough, I was praised for being such a good boy and trying to help.

Even as a small child, I was doing the right thing purely for superficial reasons; to look good in the eyes of others, and to boost my own ego.

So, in my life, ethics plays the role of reminding me that I don't have any. I do the right thing for me, not for you. I have a selfish morality.

 

[Souplex]

I follow one very basic rule at all times:
Don't be a dick.
You'd be surprised how many vows from various sources boil down to that.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Ethical building is important to me. The client is trusting me not to leave something dodgy In their house. You would be surprised what some people will do when they can hide it.

Me and dad were at this house that had a mold problem in the bathroom because the old plumber had basically forced the showers drain pipe into a connection and it had popped out from the tension. So for years the shower was draining into a big puddle under the house! And right below the shower the prick had simply cut a floor joist(which holds the floor up) in half because it was in the way of his pipe and he left it there chopped in half with no support. Terrible.

 

[wilsontheterrible]

Ethics play a large role in my life. In my work I have access to sensitive, personal data. I can look, but I don't. There's a lot of unethical people in the world and I can't change them but I do keep my corner of it clean.

Professionally: I'm looking into becoming a technical writer. Before that, I studied engineering. Ethics are rather huge in both of those professions. I mean, I took an entire course in engineering ethics.

Both good ones. I need to deal with a lot of personal tax and financial information in my field and I've been put in several positions where I've had to take big hits to my wallet to keep in line with what's expected of me. I don't think most people realize how much they need to depend on others whether it's trusting strangers around their personal information or just being able to believe what they're reading.

It takes a lot of people to keep everything moving along. It's easy to point out where people fail in their responsibilities, us accountants especially, but it's just as easy to ignore how cool it is that the vast majority of us do make good on what's expected of us.

 

[wilsontheterrible]

So, in my life, ethics plays the role of reminding me that I don't have any. I do the right thing for me, not for you. I have a selfish morality.

I've seen a lot of truely bad stuff come out of good inentions. So if a couple good things come out of some selfish ones that's alright in my book. But don't sell yourself too short, everyone likes praise but do you really think you'd of let the kid drown if nobody was around?

 

[Mr Thin]

So, in my life, ethics plays the role of reminding me that I don't have any. I do the right thing for me, not for you. I have a selfish morality.

I've seen a lot of truely bad stuff come out of good inentions. So if a couple good things come out of some selfish ones that's alright in my book. But don't sell yourself too short, everyone likes praise but do you really think you'd of let the kid drown if nobody was around?

No, I'd save him.

But I'd do it because saving him would make me feel like a hero, not because it's the right thing to do. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but doing the right thing has never felt as pure for me as I'd like it to.

 

[wilsontheterrible]

i murdered someone for 20 bucks. oops.

I'm not angry...I'm just disappointed. The going rate is at least 1500 USD not to mention materials and FICA contributions. I can tolerate cold blooded murder but never bad business decisions. I know a pretty decent financial planner in the old soviet bloc that would clean your books right up.

 

[octafish]

Yeah, ethics - they make model aeroplanes don't they?

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

i murdered someone for 20 bucks. oops.

I'm not angry...I'm just disappointed. The going rate is at least 1500 USD not to mention materials and FICA contributions. I can tolerate cold blooded murder but never bad business decisions. I know a pretty decent financial planner in the old soviet bloc that would clean your books right up.

could they? i have GOT to find a place to hide my assassination money. I always demand cash, less of a papertrail but i swear its just building up in a mound in my safe house. I swear i dont know what to do with it!

And part of the problem was simply that was all he had on him and he pissed me off. i took the wallet if it helps?

 

[New Frontiersman]

I try to be the best person I can, I don't really have a concrete set of ethics though. I just try and think of the feelings of other people before I act and not do things I know would upset them.

Generally as long as an action isn't hurting anybody else I don't see what's wrong with doing those actions, but of course there are exceptions, and that doesn't cover every situation.

I tend to be a moral relativist, I tend to think that morals and ethics are dependent on the situations and cultures surrounding the actions in question.

I've taken a few classed on ethics which were pretty interesting, I read some Kant and Aristotle along with reading some Confucius in a Chinese class I took. I found their ideas on ethics pretty interesting.

One thing I remember reading that made me think about my ethical positions was reading Confucius. To summarize, one of Confucius's lessons basically said we can't act based on what we the the results of our actions would be because we can never know for certain what the result of any action will be, we have to draw our morality from other sources. Kant had a similar precept when outlining his Categorical Imperative. I don't know if this made me change the way I go about about morality in my daily business, but it certainly made me think about it.

If I weren't so tired and had more time, I could probably explain my own ethical mores and studies more succinctly and accurately, but alas, twas not to be.

Oh well. Good night Escapist.

 

[Angry Camel]

Being a religious person, ethics play a big role in my life. You could basically sum mine up with Wheaton's rule, with my reasons being that life is hard enough for everyone; people don't need me being a prick around them and causing them grief. In my job (extracting conrete retaining wall parts from moulds) my ethics cause me to make sure the product is safe (eg: two rods of steel to make the pillar strong. Being lazy and just putting one in can be bad news).

On a side note: the people that bother me ethically the most are people who judge someone based on wealth (or rather the lack of it). Thinking yourself superior to others just because you inherited daddy's successful business or ran the competition into the ground really irritates me. If I wasn't ethically obliged to not harm anyone, several rich people would be missing a few teeth right now.

 

[Zyxx]

I dislike describing my behavior in a strict "code" of rules, because I don't (consciously) run my every action down some kind of ethical/moral checklist. All the same, I do try to adhere to some (fairly flexible) ethical guidelines, which are formed according to a (fairly strict) set of moral sensibilities. I think I succeed fairly well, if getting in trouble and losing your job for doing what you believe is right counts as success.

One of my most important beliefs, somewhere in the Top 5 if I were to codify them, is "Live and let live." Unless someone's behavior grossly violates my moral sensibility, I probably won't say anything about it. (e.g. I have pretty strict sexual mores, but I am neither willing nor able to interfere in the sex lives of fully informed and consenting people. Should I discover that force or deception are involved, however, I am compelled to intervene.)