Building the Professional You: Your Code of Conduct and Mission Statement

Building the Professional You: Your Code of Conduct and Mission Statement

Ethics: The Hallmark of Leaders at All Levels

Phase 3 Individual Project

Colorado Technical University

By: Jamar Iovieno

• Identify your two philosophers, ethical writers, or theorists.

For the purposes of this assignment, the ideas and beliefs of the philosophers Bertrand Russell and Marcus Aurelius will be discussed.

• Explain why you chose the two writers. Was it because they were names with which you were familiar? Have you read some of their work before, or have you engaged in conversation about the philosopher? Did your research for this assignment lead you to this philosopher?

I first came across Russell’s essay, “What I Believe”, when I was 13 years old, and I was introduced to the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius during a class in my freshman year of college. Since then, I have read considerably more works from Russell’s oeuvre, including Why I Am Not a Christian, Power: A New Social Analysis and A History of Western Philosophy (Brennan, 2005). I have also read Reflections by Marcus Aurelius, and have discussed both Russell’s brand of humanism and Aurelius’s version of Stoicism with friends and acquaintances.

• Describe, in your own words, their philosophies of life.

Bertrand Russell’s life - and his philosophy of life - revolved around three things: the search for love, the pursuit of knowledge and empathy for mankind’s suffering. Russell’s beliefs were not untouched by the existentialist dilemma that was so eloquently described by Fredrick Nietzsche