The world is running wild as we know it.

We do it just to be seen or to get a temporary

feeling of an idea. During this race of life, many pass using the shoulder lane. The shortcuts
they take to get to their destination follow no rules or principles. It’s one ordained in chaos and
confusion.

Living an ethical life is unique in itself alone. It doesn’t always guide us down the
popular route. It guides us down the route that compliments our principles and moral compass.
Therefore, we don’t do what we want to do, we do what we believe makes us feel good about
ourselves.

If I gave anyone a choice to be a good or a bad person. I would feel comfortable saying I
foresee the outcome. If given an option, I’m sure most of us would like to be seen in such a
light. There is something filling in knowing that we made an impact by staying intact.

Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. These days our society is changing due to
advanced technology, hence the study of ethics is very important than the previous decades.
Ethics is one of the major issues, which does have not any guideline to a particular activity that
is morally good, bad or neutral. However, everyone has different understanding and judgment
about ethics depend on their cultural, economical, and family back ground. For instance, lying
is unethical in most society and it is normal for some other cultures. Therefore, it is difficult to
give universal meaning about morality as it depends on a given culture. For this reason, I
would say there is not a single universal standard to label someone’s ethical decision as right
and wrong. However, all countries should adopt ethical behavior with their environment in
order to have honesty and caring society. An Individual can choose among different
alternatives based on his or her ethical decision, but it is very difficult to say his or her ethical
decision is right or wrong.

Ethics is important because it says a lot about who we are. It’s a line in the sand
showing where you stand. Most of us are raised with a set of principles we later adopt to make
our own. This in turn creates our standards for guiding our moral compass.

The direction you follow is dictated by what you feel guides you to your promise land.
Being ethical sets a line that cannot be crossed. Doing what you truly believe in and staying
true to it is a good example of such.

When you truly believe in something, you live by it. You aren’t swayed by any outside
noise because the act of going against ethics is far worse than anything. You know what it
means to do otherwise and it means to much to you for you to let it go.

Moral Rights

The theory of moral rights focuses on the respect and production of each individual
member of society and his or her fundamental rights. One of the strength of moral rights is
that it makes it accessible to protecting fundamental rights, unless some great right takes
precedence. However, there also exist some criticisms of this theory for it doesn’t care about
the benefits and costs of getting respect for another’s right.
Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the principle that ethical behavior must invariably be interpreted in
cultural context. Universalism claims that ethical standards are absolute, which has the
opposite meaning to the cultural relativism.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism claims that decision makers should maximize utility for society as a whole.
This means that a person should consider the benefits and costs resulted from his or her
actions to the whole society. Only if the benefits of the action outweigh the costs of the action,
can a utilitarian act. Utilitarianism requires that people consider not only the influence of their
action on themselves, their families, and their friends, but also the influence on the whole
society. It is easy to find that with utilitarianism, people’s actions are responsible for everyone
in society. Criticisms of utilitarianism believe that it is difficult to measure personal pleasure and
pain against those of all if society’s members. What’s more, the law cannot constrain the
utilitarianism.

Among these ethical models, personally, I favor utilitarianism a lot. The most important reason
is that utilitarianism cares about the consequences brought by the actions on everyone in the
society. It’s not enough to only care about the personal satisfactions and dissatisfactions. We
people should take the responsibility of the whole society. What’s more, utilitarianism,
especially the rule utilitarianism makes it accessible for people to doing a critical thinking before
they take action. Actually, sometimes it is difficult to make a decision, especially when we face
an ethical dilemma. A utilitarian will concentrate on analyzing the conditions and other factors
before they make a decision. What’s more, as a decision maker, utilitarian would first list the
alternative courses of an action and choose the alternative that can generate the highest net
welfare to society as a whole. As a utilitarian, I can make good decisions which will benefit both
me and the whole society, forming a win-win situation.

Personal Ethics and Values

My personal ethics and values are very easy to understand. When I am to make a
decision, I will never only depend on intuition. I would ask myself the following questions: Is
my decision legal or not? Does it comply with my values? If I do it, will I feel bad? Could my
decision at last benefit the society? Could I tell my parents about my final decision? I am willing
to sacrifice something for the privilege of benefiting both me and the whole society. I will keep
asking and thinking seriously and critically until I get the answer.

There are three major influence exerted on my ethics: my family, culture, and my internal
reflection. My families influence my personal ethics a lot. Although my families cannot decide
my personal ethics, they have instilled a strong sense of right and wrong in me since I was a
child. What my parents behave exerts a strong impact on me. My mother is too strict to
tolerate any of my actions of cheating, especially the cheating in the exam. She taught me that
cheating in the exam can not only make it lose its function of testing my knowledge, but also
lose the reputation of my teachers and my school. How shameful it is!

My internal reflection plays an important role in my personal decision making process.

When I do something against my own ethics and values, I would be abandoned myself to bad
feelings of guilt or shame. If I do something which meets my personal ethics and values, I will
feel proud or good. This will influence the creation of my ethical standards and my personal
decisions.

Views of corporate social responsibility

From the textbook we know that corporate social responsibility is a form of corporate
self-regulation integrated into a business model. Corporate social responsibility makes it
accessible for the company to taking responsibilities for the actions of the company and
encouraging a positive impact by its actions on managers, employees, communities,
stakeholders, environment, government, and even the whole society. Although, criticism
against corporate social responsibility argues that taking more corporate social responsibility
will be the violation of profit maximization, what’s more, it is unfair for the business to take
more corporate social responsibility. Another reason is that business leaders are lack of skills to
solve social issue. However, in my opinion, it is very essential for the company to take more
corporate social responsibility. The most important reason is that taking corporate social
responsibility is a way to perform the social contract. The whole society has offered the
company many resources to generate profits, based on the social contract; the company has
duty to pay back to the society. Another reason is that taking more corporate social
responsibility can enjoy less government regulation. What’s more, taking more corporate social
responsibility can win the company long-run profit. Taking more corporate social responsibility
such as investing to help construct the public facilities will help company gain the profits in the
future as a payback. It is very beneficial of a company to take corporate social responsibility.

Conclusion

Ethical standards play an important role in personal decision making process. People’s
ethical standards are invariably influenced and shaped by many factors such as their families,
friends, the culture they live in and internal reflection. Critical thinking is very necessary when
people face an ethical dilemma. A utilitarian is willing to sacrifice his or her personal profits for
the privilege of the whole society. According the similarities and differences between Chinese
and American ethics and values, business conditions in China and America are different. What’s
more, taking corporate social responsibility is meaningful and necessary.

The first one is on my professional duties which follow rules and professional codes. The
second one is applying ethical behavior in my day-to-day personal life. As I mentioned earlier, I
tend to follow the theory of utilitarianism in order to do positive things in my day-to-day life. In
general, I believe that ethics must be a rule for all human beings throughout their entire life.
Finally, I believe ethical behavior is a teachable theory and education can change society’s
understanding about the importance of ethical behavior and morality. Therefore, unethical
behavior has negative consciences to someone’s life and to the community as.
 ETHICS
(Reflection of Paper)

Prepared by:

RAJIMA H. MALANGKAPI
BPA II D

Presented to:

EDEN J. SARIKI
COURSE COUCH/INSTRUCTOR