Values and Ethics

Webster’s Dictionary defines ethics as a system of values and moral principles. Ethics started with the philosophers Plato and Aristotle trying to define a good life. Ethics later developed into what would be considered proper and improper behavior. Ethics derives from morals. Morals are what an individual considers to be right or wrong.

Ethics develop from the interaction of different individuals, then forming into a system of right and wrong. Ethics is deciding whether an action is moral or immoral based on the perspective of the person. Based on these definitions it is presumable that similar situations will have different ethical outcomes. For example,

During World War II, a French student's brother was killed by the invading Germans during the offensive of 1940. The student wanted to avenge his brother and to fight forces that he regarded as absolutely evil. But the student's mother was living with him, as she was a widow, and he was now her only surviving child. The student was his mother's one consolation and support in life. Should the student have left home to fight the Nazis, or should he have stayed at home to care for his widowed mother?

The student is having an ethical battle. He has to decide whether to avenge his brother’s death, which can be both ethical and unethical. Prior to 1940 the French military enacted The Theirs Law which stated that “military duty was personal and obligatory for the entire male population”. So according to the government avenging your loved ones deaths was the only and right or ethical thing to do. At the time leaving your family to defend your country was acceptable by society. Nowadays fighting in a war is optional. Society does not agree with law in regards to ethical behaviors and actions. Thus it would be up to the student to decide if avenging his brother would or would not be ethical.

On the other hand, how does a person leave their widowed mother to drown in a pool of loneliness and depression? Staying would...