Ethics

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that seeks to understand the nature, purpose, justification, and founding principles of moral rules and the systems they comprise. Ethics deals with values relating to human conduct, it focuses on the rightness and wrongness of actions, as well as the goodness and badness of motives and ends. It encompasses the decision –making process of determining ultimate actions, what should I do, and is it the right thing to do. It involves how individual decide to live within accepted boundaries, principle, and values and how we live in harmony with the environment and one another. They also express the values of an organization to its employees and/or other entities irrespective of governmental and/or regulatory laws (Hellrigel & Slocum Jr. 2009)

It can as well be described as moral philosophy, is the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong. Dealing with what is the proper course of action for man in the expansive sense. It has been pleased that what defines a person’s stage of moral development is not the specific ethical choice. For example, individuals may talk and think at a higher moral level, but may not always behave accordingly. Situational forces, such as threatening peer pressure or demands from higher management, may lead to behaviors that the person would not otherwise exhibit. An individual personality combines physical and mental characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts, and feels. Heredity (genes) and environment (experiences) are the primacy sources that shape personality differences. An organizations code of ethics is derived from individual ethics, which result from the influences of heredity and environment. Difference and preferences can impact organizational ethics because each employee in an organization is unique and may or may not act like someone else will act in a similar situation. (Legal And Ethical Issue 2nd Edition by George D Pozgal