Another important focus when talking about ethics is knowing the difference between what is good and bad and knowing the implications and impact that good and bad people and decisions make on the world as a whole. It is very easy to talk about what people think is good and bad and it is very easy to judge others based on what you think, feel or believe to be the right decision but that is not really what matters. Everyone in the world is aware of certain things however. There is specifically good and specifically bad things that you can do in the world and no focus on someone’s ethics will change that.
For example, helping others will always be a good thing no matter who you are or who you are helping. I know this sounds very basic and very obvious but for some and for certain situations, it actually isn’t. I’ll give you an example that is probably hard to actually relate with since it is probably very rare something like this happens. If there was a homeless man who you were to house and shelter and find a job with, no matter what that is the right decision because you are bettering someone’s life so much more than they could have ever imagined and you would have done more than mostly anyone else would have done. But if you were to either find out that that person was a murderer or that person did horrible and despicable things to people, would you think that you made the right decision? Worse yet, would you feel that you made the right decision if they had done it again?
That is the thing that makes you realise that a right decision to you may not be the right decision to someone else. You never know if someone will change or if someone has changed, and that is when you realise that every decision is relative to the person. I would personally believe that housing someone or helping someone that needs it is the right decision, but that is where the impact comes in. If they were to do the same horrible things that they have done in the past then maybe it is not the right or best thing to do. It really is relative to what happens after you offer the help.
At the same time, if you were to not offer the help then despite even thinking about the impact or implications of the decisions you make, you would think that the person is bad. You would think that if someone has the means or the resources to really help someone then they have a duty as a person to help. Especially if it does not do much negatively to you. But it really isn’t as simple as that sadly. It is the same as if you were to hurt or kill someone. You would obviously assume that if you were to hurt or kill someone that no matter what it is always a bad thing to do. I personally believe that, and I personally feel that despite what has been done in the past or what the person has done you should never hurt or kill anyone because of your own ethics. But some people out there do not feel the same.
If you or someone else was to murder someone, but it was done because the person who was being murdered had killed someone intentionally in the past, does that really make it the right decision? It really is ethically and morally wrong to ever hurt someone but the fact that some people genuinely believe the opposite is something that is hard to understand for me but wouldn’t be for someone else. The real focus about ethics and morals is that it really is relative to the person. That is really all that matters and you would never really know either.
By the way, I do want to say that I think if you are looking for a carpenter in south london, check these guys out! http://www.southlondoncarpenters.com/ They have written a few guest posts for us too so big thanks to them!
So, if we are going to put some focus on the importance of ethics, it is probably important to think about what ethics actually are. I know I went briefly into depth with it the other day, and to an extent I have spoken about it quite a lot of the past few weeks, it is important to actually define and understand what ethics is as a thing. The definition that we used before is that ethics is what gives you the decisions of what is right and wrong, and what you believe to be right and wrong. When you make a decision, you first analyse the impact of that decision but then you also analyse if you believe the decision to be right or not. For the most part, people will not choose the decision that they believe is the wrong one, or ethically or morally wrong. For the most part anyways, people decide to make the decision that they believe is right no matter what the impact is or what the overall consequences will be for all parties involved. This obviously does not go for everyone in the world, but I like to think that this is the thought process of the majority of people.
I do think that the environment and the situation that you grow up in and are moulded by is also what moulds your ethics. You know what is right or wrong or design your beliefs on what is right or wrong based on what you have seen growing up and the reactions to your decisions when you are a child. If you are punished or taught that something is wrong from a young age then that same punishment grows with you. In a way, it is like you are being trained to know what is right or wrong and really this is based on what the parents to be right or wrong. When the parents have a view or a belief about what is right or wrong they naturally put those same beliefs on their kids, because they want their children to grow up to be the best possible people in their adult ages. However, like I stated before those same parents were moulded by the situation and the environment that they were in growing up. This doesn’t make someone right or wrong either however. Just because someone has different ethics to you, does not make them bad or good people.
This is what is really important. As long as the people themselves follow what they believe to be the ethically and morally right is what is the most important. Like we have stated before, not everyone has the same ethics but everyone has a compass of what they believe to be right or wrong. Now, as long as people follow the good in their hearts and make the decisions that they believe to be best that is what is important for people and human kind as a whole. Children will grow up seeing all types of horrors and all types of good things too. That will naturally shape them and as a parent you cannot do anything to stop them from seeing the bad in the world. What is important is that you show the same children the good in the world so that they are aware it is out there.
AS long as everyone in the world makes the decisions that they believe is right and make the decisions that they believe is best the world will be a much better place. Sadly, you can’t stop the evil in the world and a lot of people cannot control that too. The ethics will stop you or allow you to make those decisions and there is nothing you can do about that. As long as you do what you think it is best that is all that matters.
We have beendiscussinga lot of topics within this blog and it has never really been completely structured, but that is just the way I like to write and express my thoughts and feelings. I feel like ethics are a really important part of life that many do not realise the importance behind. Ethics are one of the things that make us people. They are one of the main things that make people who they are specifically too. If you are a person with thoughts and feelings and any type of ethical or moral fibre then you will realise that you make decisions based on those. People care about others or have feelings for others because of those ethics and morals.
But one of the more important things I think about when I focus on ethics is if a decision is right or wrong to you, and if once you figure that out you still make the decision you believe to be wrong. I think often if you are making a decision you base it on how you feel about the decision itself, and how you feel about the outcome of that decision. Sometimes we as people make a decision that we know is wrong, but we still make it because we perceive that the end result of that action is right. For example, if you are arguing with someone like a loved one on something and you hurt their feelings, you may have done so either on purpose or accidentally.
Many times people will make a decision or a comment during an argument that they know may hurt their loved one, but they will still decide to do so. This is because the person who makes the comment believes that it has to be said, and that ethically what they are going to say they believe to be right. That same decision may seem or be ethically wrong to the other however. It is all relative because of who you are. People have different and clashing ethics. Just because something is considered the right decision to some, does not mean that those decisions are right for the others. That is one of the best things about being a human. You consider these decisions based on how YOU feel as a person. The one negative about something like this is that you may always hurt or offend someone else without meaning to, but at times that is unavoidable anyway.
This is why people need to place more importance and focus on ethics through out arguments or clashes with others. We have mentioned it in a few blog posts before, but ethics make a huge impact and implications on the future when you may not even realise it. You can have a huge argument with your significant other and drive them to cheat on you. You don’t know just what the decisions that you make will do a lot of the time, ad you can never plan for implications and impacts you cant see ahead of you.
So one thing that I have been thinking about actually regularly since my lastcouple blog posts is just how important the impact of our decisions are, and specifically how much impact the decisions of going to war in the last thousands of years has actually been. Sadly, I am not just talking about the deaths of millions of people throughout the years, since it’s quite obvious how serious that really is. What I also mean is the social and cultural impact that these wars have had in the past.
When you think of all the death that has happened from the hundreds of wars in the past, I expect you will feel some deep sorrow and sadness since so many young and old lives were lost, with some being very needless. However, if you really look further beyond the short term impacts of these deaths, you will begin to realise something quite interesting in a very, very sad way. You will realise that there have been generations and many many decedents that never had a chance to live because of these deaths. When I say this, I mean that for every man or woman that was killed before their time, they may have each had 2 or 3 children that were not born because of their deaths. You start to realise just how full this earth may have been without those deaths. There would have been entire lineages and bloodlines cut off, that perhaps would have survived if it wasn’t for war. There would have been many potential or future fathers and mothers that were needlessly killed who never got a chance to have children, and so those children that never got to be never had children, and then we realise we are talking about literal billions of people that may or may not be on this earth because of war alone. The amount of countries and lineages and people that were never to be because of wars are almost unfathomable.
Socially and culturally, it’s hard to imagine just how different the world would be if certain wars didn’t happen, or even if certain wars went the other way. When I say this, I mean for example the Franco-Burgandy wars. Or even the 100 year war between France or England and to a more modern extent, Germany in WWII. If those wars went differently or didn’t even happen, the world would be so much more differently shaped. The most extreme and obvious example of this would be if Germany won WWII. There is no telling just how different the world would be. Entire races would have been wiped out and the world would be so much emptier and so much more different. It would be one world culture. The world could be a utopia, or whatever the oppressed version of a utopia would be. It is scary to think of the amount of people that you might actually know who wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for the fact the Allied army won the war.
But like I said, think of how different the world would be if the English won the American Civil War. Or think of how different the world would be if Italy lost the wars of the past, or if England was conquered by France. So many important world events and decisions would have been made differently because of the lack of influence certain people or countries would have had. For all any of us know the main political system of the world may even be Communism. And we may instead look down on Democracy and look down on countries such as England or America. It’s really difficult to imagine because history and wars went a different way. It’s not to say that anything went the right or wrong way. That isn’t a decision for a philosopher to make. It’s just when you think of all of these ethical decisions shaping the world for hundreds of years to come without even realising it, it really is worrying what decisions we are making.
Last week I spoke about the importance of ethics, but one ethical decision that has been made time and time again form the start of the world to today is the decision to start or cause a war. Ethically it is wrong to cause harm on others, but since there are so many different reasons and causes to a war what may seem ethically wrong to us is clearly the correct decision to others. The fact is that since the start of mankind we have been waging some kind of war with each other. Tribes have attacked and slaughtered other tribes in prehistoric times, and after that during the ancient roman times people and cities outside of Rome and the papal states were slaughtered and murdered. Wars started from disagreements to the way others live have been happening since the start of time, but more recently after BC wars have been started because one country practices a different religion than another. There have been wars started over the money and resources that other countries hold, and there have been civil wars started for others to take what has already been acquired. The fact is, wars have been around as long as people have, and those who start those wars have always either felt that it was the right decision to make ethically, or that the ends justify the means making the ethical and moral nature of the decision unimportant.
One of the most common reasons throughout modern and Anno Domino times is starting war or conflict for religious reasons. Since AD there have been many times war has begun because of religious reasons. One of the most common throughout history is the crusades. Crusades have been called to various cities and countries throughout the years, with some like Richard the Lionheart making his name from them. This is the most basic and common of wars in the past. Another one of the often-caused wars for religious reasons have also been fatwa’s or Jihads that have been called upon from Islamic states.
Religious wars are terribly common throughout history with those still carrying on to this day. What makes it interesting ethically is that all those who calls or fight in these wars believe that ethically it is the most important and correct decision that they have made. They believe rigorously that it is ethically correct and often because of religious differences these wars will be caused. The fact that we know as people harming or murdering others is bad ethically is one thing, but when people believe they should do what they know is morally wrong but for what they believe is the ethically correct thing, it makes the discussion of how importance ethics are more prominent. I cannot imagine many reasons that you should harm another for an ethical reason, but the fact is that it has been happening since the beginning of time and is still happening to this day. This is something that seems to be impossible to stop as one will always go with what they thing is the best.
Ethically I feel that this is something that should not continue in this day and age. As people, we should go with what we believe is ethically correct and best for all others. If you think about how much has happened or how many life events have changed just because of decisions that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago then it is a bit insane. Even though they happened hundreds of miles away and hundreds of years away they have made impacts on your life. These impacts can be anything, such as immigrants being allowed to not allowed access to other countries hundreds of years ago. This means that possible ancestors could have been different, shaping you differently meaning that you could have been born somewhere completely different. Even 9/11 made impacts on everyone to this day in different and varying degrees, and it is almost insane to think a war may have given you a life some consider lucky.
Many times, I am often asked what the importance is of ethics. That is a very broad question that is almost uncomfortable to answer. Ethics is a really important and hot topic in today’s world due to the growth of “PC” culture. The fact is however, ethics has always been important. Ethics when boiled down to its most basic origination, is an individual’s judgement about right and wrong within their own morals. Individually, ethics is a key point about what makes you who you are as a person, and from the culture you grew up with and the surrounding influences you had growing up, this often changed and moulded what your ethics has become as a person. A right decision to you could be the wrong decision to someone else, and vice versa. The fact is, it is just about judgement for yourself. What is even more impressive about ethics as a whole is that it changes when you are in a group. A level of peer pressure and clashing personalities can mean that what you consider good may change when you are influenced in a group of 10+ people. Others can be what you consider more ethically “strong”, meaning that they do not succumb to such peer pressure and allow their views and judgement to be resolute. Either way it is incredibly interesting to note the changes in one’s decision making process when an influence is helping craft that decision.
When looking at the broader outcomes of such ethical decisions, it is almost like a butterfly effect. Since even the smallest decisions can make such long lasting impacts throughout the years, ethics plays a large part in the history of mankind and the world. Decisions made hundreds and even thousands of years ago have shaped what the world has become today, making ethics one of the biggest impacts in social culture imaginable. When considering small things like how much someone paid for a small loaf of bread thousands of years ago and the changes that could have made to the world to this very day, it is shocking how little ethics has been taken into consideration within history. When looking at bigger events like invasions of countries or the world at war and how much that has made an impact, it becomes shockingly clear that as a race, humans have always been at the will of the ethics of decision makers within the world.
To this day ethics are clear in the business world. There are entire corporate cultures which have been shaped by the ethics of the companies controlling members and entities, which have made many huge impacts around the world. When looking at housing crises throughout the years and the decisions made by big businesses buying out smaller businesses, or even just company mergers in a large degree, it has shaped the world economy and the lives of millions, if not billions around the world. Many countries such as the ones in Africa would not be suffering the way it is today if decisions were made differently in the past, and one could even think that if the ethics of decision makers in the past were different, those same cultures would now be thriving instead of surviving. One of the more important things this blog will be discussing further down the line are the decisions that were made in the past and how they could have shaped the world differently than it is today.
These are all reasons why when I think about ethics, I think about how it is the most important thing a human can have. Ethics have always shaped the world, and they are also the reason you are the person you are today. The decisions made by those in the past have influenced every action you have ever made, and to an extent they have controlled or impacted every decision you have ever made too. It is likely if it wasn’t for ethics, you would not be in the exact position you are today, or the person that you are.