Introduction
When it comes to ethics, Albert Camus has famously said, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” So what is all the hoopla about ethics? To begin with, human ethics is the basis on which any human functions, acts or behaves. His entire thinking process is guided by the inherent ethics possessed by the person. Therefore, in a society where human interaction is must and where one needs to constantly demarcate right from wrong, it is these ethics that come into play.
Now ethics are not something someone learns overnight. A person develops his ethics and morals ever since his childhood. Seeing the elders interact, and learning to differentiate right from wrong helps people develop their own ethical code over time. However, this is not to imply that the ethical code is one set of never-changing rules. On the contrary, ethical code of a person is extremely versatile, changing as the person grows and experiences newer situations and life truths.
As we learnt in duration of our course, the moral intelligence of a person can be decided by four factors: Compassion, Integrity, Forgiveness and responsibility (“Your moral compass and ethical issues” 8). On a moral compass, I would say I stand on a stronger guard when it comes to compassion and integrity, while I need to learn more and gain more perspective when it comes to forgiveness and responsibility. Thus, if I were to judge myself on a scale of 10 in moral compass, I would score myself at 6. One of the major reasons for this being that being young in age, I lack the experience that provides human insight into forgiveness and responsibility.
Now the aim of this paper is to understand our own personal values and ethics. Hence, the paragraphs to follow will focus on my own personal development for the time being.
Origin of my personal values
When a child is born, his learning begins right away. He watches his parents behave in a specific manner and adopts the same mannerisms unknowingly. Hence, it would be wrong on my part to say that my personal values are completely original. On the contrary, most of my moral and ethical learning have come from my parents and family. I remember those long nights when my grandparents would tell me stories full of human morals and ethics, some explaining the right behavior in certain situations and some explaining the truths about life. Listening to those stories would make me feel as if I am the hero of the story and hence unknowingly would incorporate the same values in my daily behavior.
Then again, watching my parents behave with elders taught me a lesson of humbleness and respect towards elders. Despite the years that have gone by, these lessons have remained intact and have developed me into the person that I am. Secondary values such as helping others, making donations, helping poor, selfless service, honesty etc are all the values that I possess and I owe their origin to my parents alone.
I remember the times when I would have trouble in studies and tried cheating. Returning home, I told my mom and dad how I scored good marks by cheating. At first they scolded me bad, only later to explain to me patiently how cheating in exams is detrimental to my own growth. They even went on to the extent of telling me a story about a boy who cheated in exams and became a failure in life because he did not actually know anything. Whereas, his friend who would score lower marks in exams became successful because he never cheated. That was my first lesson of honesty and fair play and to this date, I continue in the same lines.
Then again, another incidence that I remember happened when I was probably six or seven years old. My friends whose father was a colleague of my dad would often tease me because we were not that financially well of. So one day, crying I told my parents to become rich. Patiently my father explained to me that richness is not as important to a person as love is. Being rich will come slowly as a person will toil hard and work honestly. Since the father of my friend would cheat his clients, he was rich. However, my father was against this practice and would do what is right. Hence, he was earning moderately. Therefore, my father explained to me the importance of peace of mind over richness and the lesson that one should simply go on doing the right thing irrespective of the results.
Then again, it happened once that I went to one of my friends’ place who was not very well off. Therefore, I teased my friend saying how I had more games, while he had only three. My mother was around that time and heard what I was saying. Returning home, she asked me to her room and told me where I went wrong. She explained how teasing people with respect to their weaknesses hurts people. She reminded me of the time when I also felt hurt when one of my friends teased me in similar fashion. Hence, that day I learnt the lesson of humbleness and the fact that people who lack know of their lacking. Teasing them or making fun of that aspect of their lives is the worst possible thing one can do to that person. To this day, I maintain the stance and never tease people with regards to their weaknesses.
One other moral value that I really thank my parents for instilling in me is that of courage. I do not remember a single incidence where my parents tried to scare me into not doing something. Be it running after the monkeys or running into the darkness of night for some work, never did my parents instill fear in me. It is not just the courage in action, but also courage in words. I have been taught to stand up against what is wrong, no matter what and that is something that not most people want to do. Once I was travelling in a train and saw a gang of guys ill teasing a girl. I went and told the guys off (even though I was scared that they might beat me up). But since the train was crowded the boys thought it safer to simply let it be and hence left without another word. That was my proudest moment and all thanks to the values that my parents gave me.
Have my values changed during my lifetime?
While the most basic, moral values stay same over the years, some values are prone to changing depending on the circumstances one faces in life. When I was young, I used to feel like for me my friends are everything and I would always be ready to do absolutely anything for friends. However, over time, my values changed. I started respecting the importance of my family and understood the fact that when the entire world turns against you, it will be your parents who will always be by your side, no matter what.
Then again, I never scored high on responsibility factor and high ego prevented me from being forgiving. However, after the course, I have got new insight into this aspect of my nature and morals. Thus, I am forced to reconsider my existing stand on these facets of my ethics and values.
Hence, it would be wrong to say that values do not change. A person is constantly developing and hence his ethics and values transform too.
How often do I articulate my values in interactions with others?
When it comes to articulating my values, these are more apparent in action. However, I never really try to preach people about what is right and wrong. One of the values I possess makes me believe in letting the world be. Hence, I do what is right and let others follow their own due course.
Do I think about and evaluate my values often?
Actually, it is this course that I undertook that made me evaluate and assess my values for the first time. I realized that even though I possessed these values in the past, it all came naturally to me. I never really gave much thought to what my values are and whether they are right or not. However, today I realize that while I have developed ethics and values over the years, I am yet to mature into a 100% moral intelligence person. My ethics and values on responsibility and forgiveness are still weak for the lack of facing such situations and will develop only as I grow in life. In order to develop my understanding and values in the field of forgiveness and responsibility, I need to follow a certain code in behavior:
Firstly, I need to start taking responsibilities. Having come from a community where family is closely guarded, seldom do I face situations where I have to be the responsible member. However, after doing this course, I have learnt that a person is strongest when he accounts for himself and his behavior. Therefore, I’ll begin by taking responsibility of my actions, behavior, and beliefs.
Secondly, in fights and misunderstandings, I will try and make an effort to get and give forgiveness. This will widen my perspective, integrity, and values on forgiveness.
Eventually, all this will make me achieve a near 95% moral competency and hence, make me a better and more virtuous person.
What might lead me to change my values now?
While undergoing this course, I realized that our personal values do not always serve well in business. Life is completely different than business or profession. While it may be wrong to manipulate people in real life, it may serve in good interests of all the stakeholders in a business. Hence, while this course has led me to evaluate and reassess my values, it has also taught me a few new ones, making me realize the importance of having a different set of business ethics altogether.
Need for ethical constructs in your business.
Ethics play a key role in the human society, not just when discussing the personal interactions with family, friends, or strangers; but also on a more organizational front. The term “Business Ethics” is not unknown and has been a point of debate amongst many for several decades. While some regard certain business ethics as plausible, others admonish them and vice versa. In the world of globalization, where the term “business” is on the mind of all around, business ethics become extremely important to discuss, learn and talk about.
The cases are not unknown where business rivals adopted for unethical ways to outrun each other. For example, it is a common strategy amongst rivals in soft-drinks industry to buy-out the stock of the opposition and creates a shortage of supply in the market. Hence, customers are left with no option but to purchase the brand of soft drinks available in the market; thereby, increasing its sales. However, the question this arises is: Is it okay to follow practices which are beneficial for business and profits but negligent of the moral ethics? This is one of the ethical dilemmas that most businesses face these days and resolving them takes immense strength and understanding on behalf of the decision maker.
One of the famous examples of recent years is the case of Google’s operations in China. Google, in order to gain an entry into the Chinese market created a new platform Google.cn, which allowed the Chinese government to regulate and monitor the search engine. Much admonished by rest of the world, since Google’s business policy states privacy to its users, the issue became a highlight. It was a tough decision to take by the Google’s management. What should Google do: Should Google discontinue Chinese operations; take Chinese government’s regulating policy head on; or continue assisting the Chinese government’s regulation policies? Google continued with the operations, however decided to discontinue cooperation with the government and hence protect the users. Amidst concerns regarding Google’s standoff with Chinese government, Google finally forged a deal with the government that allowed Google to function by way of offering censored products (search engine) that functioned within the Chinese restrictions, while also keeping the personal details of the users confidential and outside of China.
While the above is a general case of discussion, the issue of business ethics plays to forefront here. The stakeholders in Google’s decision-making were – the shareholders, Employees, Users and the Chinese government. The action plan followed by Google benefitted the following: Shareholders (as they benefitted from the revenue earned by Chinese operations of the company), employees employed in Chinese operations (as they are getting employment), and the Chinese government (as their rules are being withheld and their totalitarian regime is being adhered to). The only people not benefitting from the present decision of Google are the users. This, therefore, creates an ethical dilemma for the decision-makers. With Google’s Ethical code saying “Don’t be evil”, the decision taken above was in direct contrast with the same, since the policies followed were restricting the right to freedom of expression and information of the Chinese users. Nevertheless, the decision taken by Google’s decision-makers cannot generally be criticized because their overall trajectory of thought looked for the path that benefitted the maximum people. Had Google opted to move out of China, no one would have benefitted from the action. Thus, it can be concluded that Google’s ethics sought to benefit maximum number of people, even if that meant going against its own policies. Hence, by way of the evaluation as taught to us by Mr. David Paul, had I been amongst the decision-makers of Google, I would have taken the same decision (“Deciding what’s right” 13).
The above was just one example. A lot of other professional issues may come up while working. It may be ego problems with boss or colleagues. It is in times like these that one requires a solid set of business ethics to get you through the phase. One thing to remember, however, is that everything is temporary. What happens today will not stay tomorrow. So taking things easy, one at a time, will help save you from a lot of wrong doings that might be inflicted on you and vice versa.
Conclusion
In the end, it may be concluded that MIDP has helped me immensely in taking stock of my moral values and their origin. Today, I feel extremely blessed to have the set of ethics that are prized and that will help me go through my life smoothly and rightfully. While I owe it all to my parents and the lessons that life taught me (Compassion and integrity), I also thank my professor and MIDP course for bringing to light areas where I still lack and need to learn more (forgiveness and responsibility). I know myself much better today and even though I know I am yet to learn and acquire a lot more values, I am better prepared to accept them as and when they cross my path.
Works Cited
Paul, David. Your Moral Compass and Ethical Issues. Department of Management. San Francisco. PPT.
---. Deciding What’s Right. Department of Management. San Francisco. PPT
