When Randy Cohen undertook an ethics column for the New York Times Magazine in 1999, he figured ethics meant how an individual acts in a moment of crisis. "If you encounter a homeless person and they ask you for money, you make a choice about how to act," he says.
Eventually, he realized what's often more important than whether you give a buck to the poor fellow is what you do to change poverty and homelessness, for example, when you get home. Laws, he notes, such as those permitting the ownership of slaves, are not always ethical. And sometimes lying might be the most ethical action. If you worked on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s and were asked the whereabouts of an escaped slave, would you lie? How about those sticky little instances such as, "Does this make me look fat?" A sideways response ("That is your color.") is probably preferable to a bruising "yes."
But sometimes, reasonable values bang into each other: truth versus loyalty, justice against mercy, short-term against long-term, and individual versus community good. "People would like it if these were simple matters. It's much harder than that," he says. "You often have conflicting claims. These are often questions about which honorable people may differ."
Concerns about declining ethics isn't new."People have been complaining about political corruption for more than 2,000 years. And how the younger generation doesn't have the values we used to have, for more than 2,000 years," says Chris MacDonald, president of the Canadian Society for the Study of Practical Ethics and operator of a well-stocked online ethics bookstore. Whenever people's interests are at stake or someone has a choice about who gets what, ethics come into play, says Mr. MacDonald, an assistant professor of philosophy at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Several years ago, Sidney Ribeau was watching people squabble on a televised news show. He realized they weren't listening to each other.
"There were different values," says Mr. Ribeau, president of Bowling Green State University."It seemed that we should as a university help students early on to think critically about their values. What leads them to believe that academic dishonesty is wrong? Or about a genetic issue? How do they reach conclusions that are good for more than just the individual?"
What should a student do if her or his friend is drinking heavily? "In terms of values, do you value your friendship with your friend more than their well-being?"
"There are issues we're dealing with as a society that are very, very complex.What's missing is that reflective step where people can step back and look at their decisions," says Mr. Ribeau.
Lane, Tahree. "The role of ethics in daily life." The Blade. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jun 2014. <http://www.toledoblade.com/Culture/2005/10/02/The-role-of-ethics-in-daily-life-as-we-choose-between-Right-and-Wrong.html