Week 4_Harry Kang_A01

“Ethic,” a topic leading to endless discussion. Almost everyone is talking about ethic today. When someone spits on the ground, we say it’s wrong; when someone cuts the line, we say it’s wrong; and when someone shouts “FUCK” in public, we say it’s wrong. It seems we always know what’s right and what’s wrong in ethical speaking. Then by the end of the day, we like to sort ourselves into the moral group as long as we didn’t try to do anything immoral. However, is "not doing anything" itself a right thing to do? I questioned myself about this after reading Amy Block Joy’s Ethics and “Breaking Bad”: Developing and Practicing Ethical Skills.

The example in the article, which asks what to do when I find my co-worker stealing something from our company, echoes a very similar situation of mine. There was a time when one of my friends took away the eraser of another of my friends. In general, it was really not a big deal. It was just a small ordinary eraser anyway. But one just can't feel the anxiety during the moments unless one experience once. I really had a hard time deciding whether I should tell the owner of the eraser, but eventually, I chose to be silent and forgot what I saw. In order to make myself feel better or, more specifically, less guilty, I even convinced myself that he just borrowed it and maybe forgot to return. It turns out the real reason was I didn't want to get in trouble with any of my friends just because of an eraser. This is actually one of the problems pointed out in Amy's article. When it comes to taking real actions, for most of the time, people are more likely to keep silent or even lower their ethical standard, especially when it comes to small things like an eraser. Amy spirits me to recall and rethink about those decisions I made in such situations. I certainly hope the methods in her article can spirit more and more people like me to start take actions when immoral happens.

Question: Was there any injustice happened tot people who try to take actions to keep the ethical standard in history??

Reference:

Joy, A. B. (2014) Ethics and “Breaking Bad”: Developing and Practicing Ethical Skills. Compliance & Ethics Professional.

Network9. https://network9.biz/brand-management/branded-content-is-it-ethical/attachment/branded-content-profit-vs-ethics2/. [Accessed Jan 27^th 2019].