As an individual, I have always believed that independence and self-sufficiency are important. In all roles I play whether as a daughter, a student, a friend, or an employee, I have always placed high value on autonomy and rationality in my daily life as I pushed for equality and a life guided by wisdom and understanding. These values that I consider vital for my existence have helped me recognize infringements in ethics especially since I am always beset with ethical decisions during my daily exchanges with people I encounter every day. According to the Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI), I am guided by my reasoning abilities (rationality) when determining and understanding roles and responsibilities, including universal rules that every individual is expected to pursue (autonomy).
Based on the Ethical Lens Inventory, there are four basic foundations that determine ethical behavior. These basic foundations can be categorized into values that determine the correctness of a particular behavior, while the other one pertain to values that identify whether the person places importance on individuals or the community. The first set of values includes rationality and sensibility, which determines whether one prioritizes the use of critical thinking (rationality) or exercise the skills for empathy and compassion (sensibility). The other set of values emphasize personal responsibility (autonomy), while the other one considers communal needs (equality) (“Understanding the ethical lens inventory”, 2011). My ELI results revealed that I consider autonomy more important than equality as well as my preference in being rational over sensibility (“ELI Ethical lens inventory”, 2015). As an individual who prefers autonomy, values that I hold important include self-control, independence, freedom, accountability, diligence, and authority, among others. As a rational being, I consider values such as loyalty, honorability, trustworthiness, consistency, faithfulness, purity, predictability, and uprightness, among others, as important.
Every human being deserves to have their rights protected and this belief has led me to value the importance of individual rights. This is the main reason why I prefer autonomy over equality. When individuals feel their rights are not threatened, then everyone in the community feels the same way, thus, the feeling that everyone is treated fairly becomes strong. To ensure that rules are followed diligently, rules must be thoroughly understood by everyone, are consistently implemented, and are communicated clearly to everyone. This has been ingrained in me since I was a child and I have carried it since with me. In our household, my parents clearly set rules when it came to school matters and after-school activities. Regardless of gender, boys and girls in our family followed the same rules, such as no parties during school days and Sundays, no sleepovers to friends’ houses, and being at-home by six in the evening. My friends did not have the same rules as ours, but they generally obeyed my parents’ house rules whenever they visited us at home. This has made it easier for me to appreciate rules because the rules applied to both males and females in our household. The good thing is we were always allowed to do what we wanted on weekends as long as our parents were informed properly and ahead of time about our activities.
For me, an ethical individual is someone who performs his or her roles and responsibilities dutifully and has the heart and mind to act autonomously as a responsible individual even when there are no people observing his or her actions. These days, some people act ethically when presented with a difficult situation and only in the presence of other people. What I consider more admirable is when an individual still does the right thing even when there are no people to witness his actions. In my belief, this is the greatest testament of integrity and fairness in an individual. When presented with a situation that may compromise one’s values, the way the individual will react to the situation would determine the true character of the person. Such incident happened to me seven years ago while I was still in high school. Back then, I earned the moniker “The Fighter” because I did boxing and karate and was generally very much into sports. I was very self-disciplined and dedicated in my workouts that I practiced with or without the supervision of my coach or the presence of my peers. I loved seeing results after months of hard work, which pushed me to strive to become even better. In my opinion, my being a rational and self-governing individual has become assets in my quest for success and perfection in life.
Another example that has helped shape my core values is when I found out that my best friend was envious of my success. This led her to betray me and break my trust as she kept saying bad things about me behind my back in order to make herself look good. I have always been a good friend to her and have helped her cope up with whatever problems she had during those times. At one point, she called me up and cried because she was so stressed about her future as she claimed she thought she made the wrong decision by starting a bachelor degree she had no interest in. Seeing her in distress and struggling to deal with her situation, I tried to help her find a solution, which resulted in convincing her to switch courses and transfer to my program at the same university. After doing some research, she told me she was ready to transfer to my class, which brought excitement in me as I would be able to spend more time with my friend. I looked forward to being there for her and helping her at school. But on the second day of our class together, I noticed she suddenly became distant, started befriending other people, and leaving me out in conversations. I wanted to help her make friends, but she started acting weird in front of me. Initially, I could not comprehend what was going on. She pretended I did not exist even when we were working in group projects. As a friend, I initiated talks to correct the problem and ask her what was wrong, but she only said that nothing was wrong. Soon after, I found out through other friends that she has been talking behind my back and that most of the things she told about me were untrue. By then, I realized that she was jealous of my success. Still, I felt deceived and let down upon knowing she was talking behind my back as I considered her a dear friend.
I have always been honest with other people and thus, I also expect them to be honest with me. I value rules and have always abided by them. When I commit to something, I always ensure that I follow through with it. Because I set high expectations for myself, I have also felt that others must also set high expectations for themselves. When I had a part time job, I joined a start-up company where policies, processes, and rules were not in place or fully implemented. Despite my part time role and status in the company, I took it upon myself to communicate with the CEO and put into action the company’s general rules that I thought would help make operations clearer and easier to follow. After getting the CEO’s approval, I communicated the changes to everybody. While some thought I overdid my role in the company, I did not mind the comments said about me because I felt that someone had to do it. Since no one initiated the changes, I did not hesitate to voice out my opinions regarding the changes.
In everything I do, I always strive for fairness and equal rights for everyone. I am confident that I use my critical thinking skills when attacking a problem, learning new things, or problem solving. I carefully think about the problem and come up with various alternative solutions in order to come up with an informed decision. This is a decision-making process that I follow every day of my life. While I value that rules and policies are in place, I do not hold people liable for events or situations especially when they have not received the proper training when it comes to the execution of their tasks or if expectations have not been fully communicated to them.
My experiences regardless of the roles I played – a daughter, a student, a wife, a mother, and an employee – has strengthened me as an individual. I place a high value on accountability, independence, loyalty, self-control, responsibility, consistency, and faithfulness, among others, and use these knowledge and skills when coming up with decisions. These have made a deep impact in my life as an individual. When presented with a situation, I try to determine the rules that are in place and present options for the improvement of rules. I thrive better when presented with clear expectations and try to affirm my own expectations as well. Generally, my core values have helped enhance my behaviors and to live out my ethical principles.
References
ELI Ethical lens inventory. (2015). Ethics Game. PDF.
Understanding the ethical lens inventory. (2011). Ethics Game. PDF.
