Ethics!

Ethics is defined by Collins Dictionary as “the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it” so it is the study of what is considered to be correct or not, in other words morals. For example, those who believe in God have a set of ethics that they have to follow: Catholic people have 7 deadly sins by which they base many of the decisions from. This is because these sins are extremely incorrect and are said to be mortal because they “kill the life of sanctifying grace”.

On the other hand, there are two types of beliefs I discovered in this lecture since I believed there was only one. Atheist strongly believe that God doesn’t exist, meaning that they are against the belief that there is a supreme being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Agnostics are not entirely sure of God’s presence, so they are not completely against that belief. Additionally, these two don’t have a set of morals that were decided by a divinity, but they base their decisions on experience and that’s why their morals are constantly changing.

After these two beliefs were introduced to me, the question “should there be a universal moral?” arose in the class. I believe there should be one because to a certain point we ARE all equal and there should be a basic set of morals. For instance, the fact that some people are stronger, smarter, or quicker than others makes them think they are superior, and if they were able to gain authority in the society, such as the police, in some cases they believe they can take someone else’s life. This is the reason why I strongly disagree with the dead penalty, and in this case I take the agnostic belief: I’m not sure whether God exists or not but I’m sure not one human has more power than other, and therefore no one has the right to play as if he were God or a supreme being; and decide to kill someone. Even in an extreme situation there are punishments that can be taken before the decision of killing someone. This is why I believe murder for any reason is not acceptable and should be part of a universal moral. However, I have a high respect for the morals that religions impose and I follow some of them even if I’m not part in that religion but because I know they make me a better person.

However, getting to this decision was not easy at all. So how can someone arrive to an ethical decision? Here each person should utilise all their areas of knowledge: with the use of language, we need to be careful with the significance of words. In addition, emotions can guide us in an instinctive way and they can also allow us to know other’s emotions and develop our moral behaviour. Most importantly, you must always be true to yourself and not let other's opinions guide your decisions of what is wrong or right.

Finally, I believe ethics is one of the most important areas of knowledge since it allows us to live in a peaceful, enjoyable environment and it is a code of how someone can be a better person which I think can be improved daily and by which I base my life upon.