ETHICS

 Bad circumstances are not excuses for making bad choices and leading poor lives. Values and ethics are not just designed for good times, but also to prevent bad times. They are like the laws of the land which you need when people are good and you need even more to protect them from the bad.

 Most choices are not ethical choices. For example, what clothes to buy or what TV to get are personal choices based on what is more appropriate. They are not ethical choices. For some people the right choice may be Panasonic instead of Sony for affordability. Personal choices are subjective, not objective, and even though these are not ethical issues they certainly involve responsibility.

 Ethical choices reflect objectivity between right and wrong. That is why our conscience hurts when making an unethical choice and does not hurt when making a wrong personal choice. Choices are personal because the person makes it, but the rightness or wrongness does not change from person to person. Just like in a math test, who takes it and what answer they give varies from person to person, but what makes it right is not the choice, but the independence of the correct answer. 

Of course, ethical choices are not always like making choices in math, just like being a nice person is not the same thing as being a good and ethical person. A person could be socially nice yet be a cheat and a liar. That makes him nice yet unethical. Niceness reflects social acceptability. Nice does not mean good.

 In fact, most of our choices today are based on: 

1. Our desire for convenience, comfort, and pleasure. 

2. Our feeling--do what feels good, it is good for you. The criteria is to feel good rather than doing what is responsible. 

3. Social fads and ads--everyone else is doing it, so should I.

 It is a common belief that ethics and ethical choices are confusing. The big question is to who? Only to those with unclear values.