Ethics encompasses the personal decisions made by an individual regarding his life. These are things he does, how he acts toward any given situation. An ethical person does (mostly) right things. And how the fuck do you decide if something is right? Well I feel deep in myself a compass. That might be conscience to some people, belief in a higher power to other, life experience to yet another and fear of getting caught or imprisoned at the bottom, criminal end of the scale. I guide myself by taking into account goals that I have carefully set for the longterm that I believe are good for myself, the people around me who depend on me, and for those I depend on as well. I look at what I deeply feel to be right or wrong. I take into account my experience, what I have observed to be workable and what I have found to be true. I take into account my very personal feeling that there is a principle greater than myself. And I take into account morals.
Morals - these aren't personal decisions, except in whether you agree with them or not. These are rules that a group has decided are best for that group. Buddhists have one set. Americans have their own version of what is moral and immoral. Catholics have lists of "sins". But these share the imposition from without the spirit or person - you may strongly agree with them, or strongly oppose them. But they still exist, outside of you, and people will evaluate your conduct against them whether you agreed explicitly with them or not.
I happen to think this is society's, human organizations' and groups' version of DNA - morals that work cause that human grouping to move through history, those that do not cause the group to break up, disappear, or lose to another group...
That sound rough. And so it damn well is! What did you think, that this stuff was going to be fucking easy?
No. Ethics is damn tough. Because that goes beyond what someone else has codified for you to do and makes you responsible for your own decisions. So what's right and what's wrong? Boy that is hard. And then once you start reaching into that you get harder ones - what is more right than another action? What is more wrong than another. That could take forever and pages and pages and pages. That's part of why schools can't seem to teach this. They try and find each point of decision and it can't be done. They can impart morals - and only that. But schools as they generally (there are exceptions, usually specific teachers who manage to do this anyway) cannot teach the person to make real life decisions, they don't even come close to this.
crap - this is turning into ranting bullshit - and yet more...
When Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty or give me death", that rings deep in my soul. Yeah, cliche and not in fashion. It speaks of a personal commitment to a vision of the future and a willingness to stake all on that belief. I think a truly ethical person, someone certain of themself enough to feel deep within that they have made a decision that is RIGHT can make that kind of committed decision. Maybe that decision is only (only, took me fucking five years of continual attempts to do this) quitting smoking. But the certainty, kind of integrity, carries through.
I think that's what ethics has to deal with
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all...