Maricopa Chamber Ethics Blog

What are ethics?

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Last modified: May 23, 2007

The definition that wikipedia gives is as follows:

“Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the “science (study) of morality”. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is “good” or “right.” The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy. This is one part of value theory (axiology) – the other part is aesthetics – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic.”

In my opinion that is fancy language for doing what is right, or at least believing in our own minds that what we are doing is the right thing based on our value system.

Ethics are the values that we base our decisions on. We all live by a certain set of values, even if we believe we do not. These values become the ethos of our lives. We are all in process of becoming someone, and that someone is based on our ethics or values. We make the decisions we make, with our values as moral compasses pointing us in the direction that we feel we need to go.

Confused? Good, that is a perfect place to start. I hope that we can begin the conversation of community and ethics with more questions than answers. It’s always best to start confused and work towards less confusion, than to begin with the perfect answer and not go anywhere. I look forward to unpacking the idea of ethics, and how that relates to the community that we find ourselves in. If you ever what to have a conversation about what I write, feel free to drop me an email.

Rusty