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Ethics is the study of how people develop a code of right and wrong based on moral sense. It applies to various areas, including defining what is right or wrong, exclusions, and important issues. Ethical questions arise in daily life and professional contexts, and answers can be questionable. Personal and state legislative codes of ethics can conflict, leading to ethical dilemmas.
Ethics or moral philosophy is a diverse and hotly contested subject of inquiry. It’s not the same as having “morals” per se, but rather the study of how people can evolve a certain code of right and wrong based on any underlying moral sense. One area of his focus is the application of morality, as constructed by one or more people, to ask many different questions. There are a number of common ethics questions, but they can differ depending on the type of ethics being considered.
When ethics is an applied moral code or ways to derive one, that doesn’t mean that all people agree. In most circles, ethics tend to begin by defining what is right or wrong and by determining whether applying a derived ethics excludes some people. The first US constitution did this by declaring that slaves were less than one person and women were ineligible for citizenship because framers asked the question, “What is a citizen?”
In more general ways, all questions that touch on whether something is right or wrong are ethical questions, starting early in life. Most children, for example, may find themselves in a moral dilemma as to whether it is okay to take a cookie off a plate. To determine exclusions, the child may also begin to define when it is appropriate to take the cookie, such as when it is offered or when the mother is not looking. This reasoning can be refined in light of the response of others to the child’s choice.
When cultures have more or less agreed upon basic ethical behaviors, there is still a significant gray area. An entire branch of ethics called applied ethics, deals with what are mostly known as important issues. Some of the more common ethical questions include questions about the definition of marriage, the age at which life begins, euthanasia, the importance of individual rights versus the state, and the list goes on.
These ethical questions are asked frequently, either informally by students writing papers or giving debates, or formally by heads of state or others attempting to pass bills. Such questions may erroneously be called moral questions, but the very reason they exist is because different moral codes have led to opposing ethical sets. When the underlying morality is opposite, trying to define a single code of ethics legally or individually is extremely challenging. The decision on a particular issue may therefore be called the creation of an ethic, but it is different from the creation of a moral belief. Such laws will only encompass the majority, and a large minority can still feel the ethical conflicts with personal ethics and morals.
Similar ethical models must be built in professional organizations. Marriage and family therapists, and all other counselors, for example, have had to ask, at one point, “Is it beneficial to patients if therapists have sex with them?” Initially people failed to ask this question sometimes, and even the most famous early psychiatrists didn’t always follow their advice to avoid this practice. To this end, and since the problem is still surprisingly widespread, professional organizations have constructed codes of ethics that prohibit this conduct.
Similarly, in the practice of medicine, many doctors abide by the precept of doing no harm. This too is complex. Is it harmful to give a patient treatment that will not save a life? What exactly is medical damage? Does it hurt a patient to let him die a painful death when drugs could end her suffering? Even in strictly professional contexts, there is depth to common ethical questions, and the answers to them can be questionable.
In essence, it is difficult to exist without asking common ethical questions. They arise in daily life in a variety of choices people make. Most people often worry about what is the right thing to do.
In essence, many people live in a constant state of controlling their behavior and thinking against both personal and state legislative codes of ethics. Some find these little checks easy to make, and others find themselves in constant conflict between right actions and moral sense. Also, when faced with things like the professional or legal code, many people find that the moral sense is absolutely against the codes. In such cases, after much personal research, it may mean that acting ethically requires acting illegally.
