Ethical foundations, where do we get ours?

Hello again, in this blog I would like to discuss how I believe that each individual comes to obtain their moral compass and ethical values. Some people believe that we are simply born with them, well as you can guess I do not subscribe to this philosophy. I belong to the group that believes that we have a choice; that is we determine for ourselves what is right and wrong. It starts when we are young and being taught by our parents. To some this simple concept may escape them due to the fact that not everybody grew up with parents. If a child grew up in "the system" do they truly get exposed to what we call true ethical values? As I grew up I was fortunate enough to enjoy the simple pleasure of my parents. Although I did not like being told what to do and how to do it, I understand what my parents were doing after I had children of my own. They were not simply raising me, they were giving me a road map to how to raise and teach my children. They incorporated their values and beliefs into my brother, sister and I. It was more than what is right and wrong, they gave us a foundation with thresholds that society says we cannot cross. As we grew up in this system, we developed character and values that we still hold today and have instilled into our children. Apparently my parents did it right as all three of us are successful in our respective jobs.

Everybody has a sense of ethics and morals within in them but to what degree is the real question. We do not all agree on what is ethical let alone where those ethical lines are. For instance, in the middle-east some countries say that if you are convicted of theft then you will have your hand cut off. Is this ethical? Is it the moral thing to do? Here in the United States this practice is unheard of and if it were to occur then everybody would be up in arms about how brutal and inhumane it is. I have to ask though, why hasn't our country said anything about this ancient practice? Why haven't we as a society put pressure on these other countries to stop this brutal practice? I think the answer simply is because of politics due to over 2 billion believers of this religion.  They have not changed in thousands of years, why would they change their beliefs because we disagree and ask them to? Religion is a major aspect of our lives, for those that believe, and it shapes our moral and ethical values and beliefs and as we know millions if not billions of people have died in the name of Religion. One point of contention for me is that we regardless of what religion we may or may not practice we given a set of rules by a divine being. The problem with this is that the rules were written and re-written by man which is fallible. What if the person that wrote them initially was unethical and changed what he was told?

To emphasize the religious issue, let us pretend that a country starts the following practice, once a suspect is convicted of murder they will then be immediately executed with 24 hours of the conclusion of the trial? Will our country say anything then about this practice? What happens if the person is actually innocent and an appeal could potentially locate and introduce additional evidence that exonerates the suspect? Again, we judge others based upon our beliefs here in our country, although well intentioned it causes numerous problems as others do not agree with what we think. This is where my point is shown again, this fictional countries ethical and moral behaviors are a response to how their culture adapted to their part of the world. We continually find ourselves judging other nations and cultures based upon our ethical and moral values. If these two cultures are different to begin with, then wouldn’t our ethics and morals be as well?

What happens when this fictional country says that they follow the teachings of their religion and it states and "eye for an eye"? It is obvious that their ideas are not the same as ours. We have religious freedom in this country but does their line crossing based upon our Christian faith values allow us to intervene with other countries that follow Islam for instance? Is this an ethical and moral problem? I think so which is why we find it difficult to intervene because neither side believes in the same things. With this said, where a person was raised arguably has the most influence on what they believe. As we see today, the countries in the middle-east will not allow other religions to enter their country and attempt to displace their religion. Due to this point, each party will not see eye to eye nor will they believe in the same ethical and moral values. Because of this fact, it causes some of the religious uproar that we are seeing today simply because we do not believe in their religion.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that because of what our parents taught us, where we lived, and our Christian faith; whether a person believes in it or not, that these elements reinforce our ethical ideals and values. These experiences are intertwined throughout our micro, meso and macro levels in society. We have our ethical beliefs in our personal lives and then we take those beliefs and values to work in an organization while fulfilling the values of the organization. On some levels our personal beliefs and the organizational beliefs must intersect and agree with one another for both to be successful. As a whole the organization interacts with the community in ways that foster a relationship of trust. This is the result if everything worked as it was intended. If it is this difficult for people in one location to agree on and do what is ethical in both their personal and business lives, then how are we supposed to agree on what is ethical on a global scale?