Ethics - What are they?

Ethics - What are they?


The Oxford English dictionary describes ethics as -

"Moral principles that govern a person's behaviour or the conductivity of an activity"

Reader 5 Professional Ethics covers the three main contexts of ethics.

1 Personal - effecting a particular person
2 Professional - a field of work requiring a standard of behaviour
3 Organisational - a group of people with particular purpose.

Discussing the impact on professional codes of practice, the implications of ethics in professional practice and how to develop our own way forward with regards to our professional inquiry plan. It states ethics has its roots in moral philosophy and is a code of conduct.

It is important to be open to ethical questions as there is rarely one point of view. It is a daily occurrence and a subject that many people have not considered before in context."

Ethics is the Greek work for "character" We talk of events being character building and that a person has an admirable character. Plays are usually character driven. In performance we are encouraged to develop a character and not give a one-dimensional portrayal. We can do this by creating or finding within the text a backstory, how the past decisions of that person has shaped their character.

Unknowingly, we have made ethical decisions all our  lives. Some will have been passed down to us and are acceptable and we may have had no need to question. Whilst others become pertinent and our decisions are based on our considered opinions and experience.

The ethical decisions we make or accept may have considerable impacts on our lives and others. Selfless people have taken on large corporations because of their ethical values, often resulting in great personal loss, because they felt they had no choice but to demand answers.

To understand ethics we must first be familiar with its development, historical events, impact on professional codes of practice, the responsibilities and its implication in how we can apply this to our practice in the world in which we live.


Hobbes was a political philosopher who wrote the book "Levianthe" and believed in the premise of a set of rules - a social contract in which rational people would understand and benefit from.

The theory of the greatest good for the greatest number was suggested by the theorist J. S. Mills (1861) as in the means justifying the ends.

MacIntyre (1976) believes there are no universals moral norms that we can use as change is inevitable.

Our moral philosophy (theories of ethics) and standards effects our ethical stance regarding equality, race, religion, age, sexual orientation and disability.

An university of Edinburgh article on equality and diversity states ethics is a" specified protected characteristic".

There are varying titles -

Metaethics - an analytical activity - the nature of morality - moral relativism, cognitivism, and non cognitivism.

Theoretical normative ethics - moral judgements - virtue ethics, deontology .and consequentialism.

Applied ethics -  finding resolutions, normalative ethical theories to difficult subjects to consider what is right or wrong.


Ethics,  Research and our Inquiry

It is a important when collating information from participants that we take care and "do no harm" with the information. We may be trusted with personal as well as professional information.

We have a responsibility as a researcher as our inquiries may have an impact on a individual as an emotive subject may make people think differently and make them feel culpable and question their answers or re-actions.

Ethics is a complex subject that is part of our everyday life and helps us to provide a framework for a better, more informed tolerant world.

As long as we remember to embrace change and grow as we become better equipped to make informed judgements and question if we feel uncomfortable with a situation and never accept a situation as the norm if we feel it is unfair and unethical.