My Moral Philosophy

My Moral Philosophy

When I came into this class, I had very strong convictions about many different moral issues from abortion to gay rights to euthanasia to infanticide etc. However, as each week passed and with each week's probing discussion questions and readings, I slowly started to see my personal ethics evolve. Rather than further corroborating my personal moral convictions, reading my classmates' responses pushed me into introspection and subsequently caused a "greying" effect on my convictions. I was no longer sure if there was a right or wrong answer to the discussion questions posed each week. I am no longer sure if there’s any answer that is more right than another.

Ethics encompass the way I see an issue and how I feel about it. In my opinion doing the right thing is situational. In chapter one of the text book chapter one page five paragraph four mentions “The question today are less about why or should ethics be a part of business; they are about which values and principles should guide business decisions and how ethics should be integrated within business”. I fully agree with this statement, it is applied to my everyday life. I know the right thing to do is to do what is best; my decision to do the right thing may seem unbelievable to others however I believe in investigating all aspect of any situation to find out what is right or seem to be the most believable. I will compare my thoughts and with what has been studied thus far this semester.

Morality was developed in me ever since my birth. My moral decisions were influenced by the teaching of my mother, aunt and grandmother upbringing; what was considered as right or wrong was advised by them as they all sang the same tune. There was a time in my life where I went through a process of trial and error where they all criticized what was wrong and congratulated what was right. It assisted me in making decisions further down the line. For example if I went into the neighbor yard and picked a grapefruit which I love until today without asking permission I knew it was wrong, I just would not do it. Growing up I realized why they would advise against something such as picking the neighbor grapefruit without permission. They knew it was considered stealing and could result on the family name being tarnished. So being a sensible child as elders were I agreed that stealing was wrong and to tarnish the family name was disgraceful. I understood it was something I must not do.

Choosing not to take a grapefruit from the tree without asking could be classified under the moral principle of utilitarianism; this would be an act of utilitarianism since it is focusing on the act of stealing a grapefruit, not the idea of stealing the grapefruit in general. Although it may serve in the self-interest of me stealing the grapefruit as a utilitarianism principle I refrained from stealing the grapefruit which