Ethics

Ethics

Sonya J. Trapp

ID:01018631

MBZ

BUS600 Foundations of Business

Carol Nissen

Russ Sinkler

Bud Becker

02/19/2009

Assignment 5.2

Ethics in today's world is like a "catch" phrase used whenever a situation arises where usage of the term might seem appropriate. . Through the reading and presentations, I discovered that in the business realm the meaning of ethic varies greatly. However, I, personally, try to incorporate ethical behavior into all that I do.

In the readings there was an analogy to the game of poker, mention of discarding the "Golden Rule", multiple references to bluffing and playing the business game. In the Nicolson article, it was mentioned that "faith principles such as stewardship, honesty, giving back, and playing fair were key tenets" in the business arena. With this information in mind, I still find that the readings send a mixed message in the consideration of ethics as a whole. The readings spoke more along the lines of the comparison to ethics in a business sense, but really didn't substantiate any true finding on the ethical principles in the bible. The takeaway for me was that there is a difference of ethics in the business (secular) world and personal ethics for an individual.

Within the Rae & Wong (1997) text there is a great description of the how the "lens" can help us understand the things of the world from a biblical perspective. The quote from George Lindbeck states "a comprehensive scheme or story used to structure all dimensions of existence is not primarily a set of proportions to be believed, but it rather the medium in which one moves, a set of skills that one employs in living one's life. Its vocabulary of symbols and its syntax may be used for many purposes, only one of which is the formulation of statements about reality." Until reading this, I had never thought of ethics from the bible in the sense. I...