Skip to main content

Article of ethics

What is ethics? Ethics is about moral principles and rules of conduct. My ethics are the rules or standards governing the conduct by which I live my life and make all my decisions. One of the best ways of defining ethics is to take a quick look at what you believe and then think about how you would react when those beliefs are challenged.

Your ethics govern your thought process so that when a problem arises or you need to try and work your way through a situation your solution is based on your ethics. Ethics are not born in a vacuum. Ethics are more like a jigsaw puzzle that is thrown together over time that when complete, makes up who you are and what you believe. From our earliest days of life, we start to learn from those around us. These learned behaviors add to the traits that we are already born with and help to shape us into the person we will become. As part of this learning process, we develop what will become our norms.

Norms are our everyday way of looking at how the world around us works and helps us to understand our place in the world. Norms also govern how we react to different situations and problems that arise around us. These are our ethics; the things we learn as we grow that govern the rest of our lives. Ethics are important for a number of reasons. First, ethics are important because they give us a baseline for understanding the concepts of right and wrong. Ethics help us to have a ready understanding of how to react to a certain situation long before that situation happens.

There are situational ethics whereby we react as the situation dictates but our reaction is due to our built-in value system that tells us what to do, not the situation itself.

The major problem with having situational ethics is that they change with the situation. Having a standard of ethics that governs us each day of our lives means we always know how we are to live no matter what. There is no second-guessing and no changing your ethics according to what you feel your ethics are at the moment.

Second, ethics are important because they act as our mediator when dealing or coming into contact with other people. If we have the wrong sense of ethics we will react to people in a negative manner. But if our ethics are built on the truth, as found in the Word of God, we will see people for who they are as children of God and we will learn to love them just as God loves them.

Third, ethics are important because we pass them onto others. We have the ability to show others the correct way to act and behave by remaining ethical in the way we live, regardless of whether it involves our personal or business life. I have also learned over the years that ethics help us to remain on stable ground in an ever-changing world and that a person’s ethics can be changed. Mine were changed when I came to know the God personally. In fact, in life, I think there is a process we go through where we search for a set of values that offer the truth in order to better guide our lives. This search can and always will center on the Bible which was written by God as our standard of ethics by which we live our lives.

At the heart of ethics is the integrity and values of the individual. If you can change the values and increase the integrity of the individual, you will change their ethics. This is what the Christian life is about: showing others the ethics we stand for and letting them know how they can turn from living by their own situational ethics to living according to the truth.  (Charles Jay P. Pascua, Pedro Apostol Jr., Joed S. Agulay)


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Empanada festival: A celebration of good taste and good life

By Dominic B. dela Cruz & Leilanie G. Adriano Staff reporters BATAC CITY—If there is one thing Batac is truly proud of, it would be its famous empanada-making business that has nurtured its people over the years. Embracing a century-old culture and culinary tradition, Batac’s empanada claims to be the best and tastiest in the country with its distinctive Ilokano taste courtesy of its local ingredients: fresh grated papaya, mongo, chopped longganisa, and egg. The crispy orange wrapper and is made of rice flour that is deep-fried. The celebration of this city’s famous traditional fast food attracting locals and tourists elsewhere comes with the City Charter Day of Batac every 23 rd  of June. Every year, the City Government of Batac led by Mayor Jeffrey Jubal Nalupta commemorate the city’s charter day celebration to further promote its famous One-Town, One Product, the Batac empanada. Empanada City The Batac empanada festival has already become an annua

PIDS expert says income tax cuts justified; warns gov’t of revenue loss

Proposals to amend the personal income tax schedule appear to be well-justified. However, these proposals should include measures that will allow government to recover the revenue loss from lower income taxes. Dr. Rosario Manasan, senior research fellow of state think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), said at a seminar sponsored by the Philippine Senate, that government should look for new revenue measures to compensate for the projected revenue loss that will arise as a result of the implementation of any of the various proposals to restructure the personal income tax. Currently, there are several income tax reform proposals pending in both houses of Congress. All of them, according to Dr. Manasan, have the same objective of addressing the phenomenon of bracket creep, which results from “non-indexation to inflation of personal income tax brackets”. Simply put, bracket creep occurs when employees’ income increases over time as a result of inflation. Th

PGIN honors Ilocano heroes of past, present through Heroes Walk

SPO1 Allan Lampitoc Franco of Banna, Ilocos Norte and PO2 Jovalyn D. Lozano of Adams, Ilocos Norte receive a resolution of commendation, a certificate of college scholarship grant to their family members and a P20,000 cash incentive each from the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte represented by Governor Imee R. Marcos and Vice Governor Angelo M. Barba in recognition of their bravery and heroic acts in the Mamasapano clash in Maguindanao on January 25. Mr. Franco and Mr. Lozano were recognized on March 10 in time for the unveiling of the second batch of Ilocano heroes at the Heroes Walk located along the Sirib Mile in Laoag City.  (Lei Adriano) By Jennifer T. Pambid PGIN-CMO In honor of the heroes who brought freedom, fame and glory to the province as well as to the country in the past century, the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte (PGIN) through the Education Department and Sirib Youth Office launched the second batch of Ilocano Heroes Walk on March 10, 2015.