Ethical Dilemmas and Violations
Abstract
Ethics are principles that are followed that lead one to do the right thing. Doing the right thing is not always easy, but to fulfill your duty, maintain your integrity, and serve honorably, you must be able to apply ethical reasoning. To really get a feel of the meaning of ethics I referred to Webster's Dictionary for the definition. Webster's definition states: ethics is the study of the general nature of morals and specific moral choices an individual makes in relating to others. Ethics concerns itself with the rights and wrongs of human behavior. At time you may think of ethics as a series of simple, clear-cut rules such as "do not tell lies" or "do not kill." Ethics is concerned with more than the rules themselves. Ethics help us decide how to act when two or more different courses of action seem equally right. The word "ethics" comes from the Greek word ethikos, which mean custom or character. The Greek philosopher Aristotle first used the word to describe the careful examination of human behavior in the light of moral principles. It was another Greek thinker, Socrates, who earlier separated ethical considerations from the philosophical issues. Socrates saw ethics as a means of judging what was, and was not, moral. He believed that if he could understand what makes some types of conduct right and others wrong, he could help people learn to lead better lives. In the military individuals develop his or her own ethical standards, usually by combining ideas from various ethical systems. These standards are the codes people turn to first when they face a moral or ethical dilemma. These are personal ethics. These dilemmas occur in daily life. Suppose you see a fellow SGM cheating on a test or you know that one has plagiarized papers in the academy. How you react will depend on the ethical standards you decide to apply. In your personal code of ethics, loyalty to a fellow Sergeant Major may rate so high that you will keep silent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 16, 2005
- Accession Number
- AD1111540
Entities
People
- James K. Wilson
- Robert E. Johnson
Organizations
- United States Army Sergeants Major Academy