Ethics in Our Everyday Lives Essay

This piece will discuss how incorrupts relate in our everyday lives and to a ampleer extent specifically how ethics are used in our body of work too how ethics are used by companies. This paper will besides cover how businesses exhaust implemented respectable procedures, standards and how these businesses flourished because of the effective use of ethical standards.I consider ethics, as vigorous as religion, as supplements to expertfulness in the government of man.Thomas Jefferson morality in our Everyday Lives. As a society we are faced with ethical problems every day, and how we grapple these situations shape our culture and lives. However, what are ethics? The meaning of ethics is badly to pin down, and the views many large number have more or less them are shaky. large number tend to associate ethics with their feelings. But be ethical is understandably non a matter of following unrivaleds feelings, nor should one identify ethics with religion, the law or wh atever society accepts. Ethics refers to the constant effort of studying our moral conduct, and our own moral beliefs, and song to interpret that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and concrete. It is not enough to be able to do the adjust thing when we ourselves have nothing to lose. We must be willing to fulfill our ethical obligations at the expense of our self-centered desires and vested interests. (Dr. Richard capital of Minnesota & Dr. Linda Elder, 2003)In short, ethics is doing what is right even when no one is looking. Well-founded standards of right and wrong that urge on what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, pull ins to society, obligations, fairness, or specific virtues fundament directly from having ethics. Ethical standards alike impose the judicious obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, and fraud, hence a society with a absolute code of ethics tends to fall out smoothly. A society with no code of ethics could very easily develop into anarchy. Although arguments have been make, to the contrary, ethics are just as bouncy in the workplace. Ethics are essential in the workplace because a tough ethical code come throughs a non-threatening environment with high employee morale, a company that exhibits clear-cut ethics tends to showing higher profits, and simply because it is the right thing to do. Perhaps most important, attention to ethics in the workplaces helps ensure that when leaders and managers are struggling in times of crises and confusion, they retain a strong moral compass, and this goes for the workers as well.The Ethics Resource Center, a non-profit, non-partisan composition devoted to business ethics, released the results of its 2005 National Business Ethics Survey, polling more than 3000 workers crosswise America. The results were disheartening 21% ob maked abusive or intimidating manner toward employees. 19% observed manufacture to customers, employees, vendors or the public. 18% observed situations that pose employee interests over company interests. 16% observed violations of safety regulations and misreporting of time worked (Verschoor, 2000, pp. 19-20) Environments that withstand these low ethical standards tend to feel hostile to the average employee. When this mien is witnessed repeatedly over time, it lowers morale. And low moral easily leads the employee feels no commitment towards the company and in turn the company feels no loyalty towards its employees. A workplace that encourages the effective ethical administration, however, is a workplace that breeds strong morale.Patricia Harned, ERC president, states Creating a strong ethical environment should be a top anteriority of all companies. (Verschoor, 2000, pp. 19-20) According to Workplace Ethics, a company with strong ethical guidelines has a few commonalities. Companies watch encouraged communication the supply feels open and unthreatened ab out reporting and discussing ethical concerns. They also clarify rewards and punishments, which provides a meaningful context to what otherwise seems arbitrary. Businesses that encourage trust between forethought and employs well tend to have a much easier time enforcing their ethical standards. Also businesses found out that by promoting this strategy that it was much little expensive and more effective than heavyly defining and enforcing their ethical standards. These fundamental laws also build unified values, which improves the corporate image. (Compilation, 1999) This creates an environment that employees find a feel to work in.Furthermore, from a corporate perspective it is just as profound to note that an ethical company tends to be a profitable company. drive out a company have ethical practices, and still show a profit? Yes, according to Business Ethics magazine. By concentrating on the personal effects of business decisions made and how they enhance or diminish the well being of others, benefits can be seen for the company, the employee, the stockholder, and the consumer. Many of the corporations that show up on the blow outstrip Corporate Citizens by Business magazine also show up on Fortune magazines 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and Working Mother magazines Best Companies to Work For. (Do Good, Do Well, 2001, p. 28) Starbucks is one of these companies and has been a regular on these lists. Starbucks is working to empower farmers in East Timor, where coffee provides the livelihood of 25% of the population. The company also participates in various external programs to help benefit the environment and provide relief efforts after disasters.Internally, Starbucks offers many benefits to its employees-including tuition reimbursement, assistant benefits, a wellness program and a 25 to 150% insure in its 401(k) plan. (Examining the benefits of corporate hearty responsibility, May1 2006) These factors are just nigh that support t o the success of Starbucks and provide the company with the foundation to build a coffee shop on every street corner. Another company that is perennially esteemed for its ethical conduct is Southwest Airlines. Although the airline industry has been through what some may characterize as catastrophic circumstances over the finishing several old age Southwest has never cut employee pay. In fact, the organizations employees took a voluntary pay cut after Sept. 11, 2001, instead than allow surging costs to force Southwest to reduce its pip schedule. Ive been here 28 social classs, states Donna Conover, Southwests executive delinquency president of customer service, and from the beginning, weve felt that employees are our greatest assets. (Examining the benefits of corporate social responsibility, May1 2006)An unethical company, however, can expect none of these benefits, and it may actually be part of the reason for failing. A perfect example of an unethical fallout would be tha t of the oil giant Enron. Former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, discussing his companys collapse due to fraud, and insider trading and tax evasion, recently insisted that his once great and honest company adhered to prevailing business practices. The Enron task force investigation is largely a case about normal business activities typically engaged in on a daily basis by corporate officers of publicly held companies throughout the country, Lay insisted in a celestial latitude 2005 speech. Lay went on to say that the Enron task force was attempting to criminalize what he characterized as common business practices. Under Lays depraved ethics code, transactions meant to deceive are not wrong if these transactions, legal or not, are commonly practiced by corporate America. Stockholders ofttimes paid the price of such as moral relativism. (Zamansky, 02/01/2006, p. 11a)This points out what should be the overriding reason for expecting high ethical standards in the workplace-its the right thi ng to do. A recent survey by The Society for benignant Resource counsel found that 54% of human-resource professionals surveyed had witnessed conduct in the workplace which violated either the law or common practices of their organizations. Some of the violations witnessed ware, comme il faut Labor Standards Act, violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employees engaging in fraud, distort records, altering the results of product tests, and misusing insider information. (Schumann, mould/Summer 2001, p. 93) The survey found that 47% of those surveyed felt pressured to compromise ethical standards to achieve business objectives. They stated that they did not report observed conduct due to factors such as fear of retribution, lack of trust in the organizations procedures, the desire to be part of the team, or a feeling that ethics were unimportant to the organizations. (Schumann, Spring/Summer 2001, p. 93)The main culprit for this pervading ethical dilemma is moral relativ ism. clean relativism is the belief that because different people have different moral principles, in that respect is no way to pass judgment on these principles as to their hardness or lack thereof. Taken to its extreme, this belief would allow any action, from lying to murder, if the perpetrator simply believes his moral framework does not preclude that action. An exquisite example of this new moral relativism is recounted by Rhonda Gibbs. About three years ago, she recalls, My daughters high school basketball coach, (also a teacher), was having a human relationship with a minor. The relationship, she details, was very obvious to those who had daily contact with the pair. Staff, faculty, and students watched the relationship develop over a period of social club months to a year however, not a single person spoke up about the impropriety of this relationship or the seriousness of this crime.Whether for reasons of not wanting to annul the coach, not wanting to look like a whi stle blower, or simply to maintain the status quo, this teachers colleagues, the very people charged with protection of the young girl, allowed him to violate her for at least nine months. The school was only forced to deal with the issue when outside parties advised the police. Although the domain of a functionscape sometimes looks bleak for the proponents of a strong ethical society, ethics do get used in a moral fashion, as this next example illustrates. Some surplus arrive adjacent to a shopping center was donated to a city by the developers who owned the mall. The land was earmarked by the builders to be used for community soccer fields. They then washed-out large sums of their own money to develop the fields.The donated land was adjacent to a river, and after many years of spring floods swamping the fields, the city abandoned them. The developers, realizing that the land was no longer being used for their intended purpose, contacted the city. Developers are ill-famed for taking otherwise useless land and turning it into acres of position lots. These individuals, however, decided to transform the property, at their own expense, into a community wetland park. This shifting took over two years and several hundred thousand dollars.These businessmen, who were well within their rights to demand the land back since it wasnt being utilized for its donated purpose, instead did the ethical thing at great cost to themselves. As I can be seen, ethics are important in the workplace and our every day life as well because they provide higher profits, higher morale, and ethical behavior is the proper course of action. Whether decisions made affect the operation of a home, small business, large corporation, or a nation, a clear ethical foundation will always serve to improve our society.ReferencesCompilation. (1999). Bulletpoint. Retrieved May 6, 2006, from Workplace Ethics Web site http//web107.epnet.comExamining the benefits of corporate social responsibility. (May1 2006). Employee Benefit News, pITEM0612100B. Retrieved May 5, 2006, from http//find.galegroup.com.Do Good, Do Well. (2001, January). Workforce, 80, 28. Retrieved May 5, 2006, from http//find.galegroup.com.Dr. Richard Paul & Dr. Linda Elder. (2003). The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical Reasoning. The Foundation for detailed Thinking.Guest, E. (n.d.). SoFinesJoyfulMoments. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from Mary (Garren) Morand Web site http//sofinesjoyfulmoments.com/quotes/sermon.htmSchumann, P.L. (Spring/Summer 2001). A moral principles framework for human resource management ethics. Human Resource Management Review, 11 (1/2), 93. Retrieved May 6, 2006, from http//web102.epnet.com.Verschoor, C. (2000, December). Ethical Culture Most Important parapet to Ethical Misconduct. Strategic Finance, 87, 19-20. Retrieved May 6, 2006, from http//web107.epnet.com.Zamansky, J. (02/01/2006). At the least, former Enron chiefs are felonious of moral bankruptcy. USAT oday, 0734-7456, p. 11a. Retrieved from http//web102.epnet.com.