Personal Dilemma

Ethics, morals, and values are things that one must learn overtime. We must start by learning what is important to us as individuals before we do anything else. After taking a short quiz about my ethical opinion I was paired up with the philosopher now as Jean-Paul Sartre. He believed in staying true to yourself and always giving people who you really where. This does not mean that an individual isn't allowed to grow and better themselves. It just means that you shouldn't change yourself because someone thinks you should be a certain way. Sartre agreed with a theory known as Marxism; I believe some of that as well. 

In my class discussion I shared my opinion in regards to the western society and its association with class struggle. My example I presented was about the government offering people in need assist with food, utilities, and other daily essentials for families and individuals. However, I believe that this assistance comes with a price. The price of accepting this assistance is possibly giving up the chance to ever save up to do better. As many may know in order to qualify for assistance an individual cannot have a savings account, and not make over a certain amount of money. This keeps people at the lowest level ever and not giving them the opportunity to strive to do better. This only makes them feel the need to have additional children, keep a low paying job, or stay unemployed. Doing so will allow these individuals to collect additional assistance at no cost to them aside from freedom; which is unethical.

What if they situation was different? What if steps where put in place to slowly get individuals away from needing governmental assistance. This will both allow individuals to strive to do better, as well as continue to help those who are really in need. The United States Census Bureau(2014) noted that 46.0 million Americans received some type of governmental assistance in the year 2013. We should ask ourselves one question. Did the individuals really need the funds, or where they stuck with a choice of saving and risk being cut off from assistance too early? If they only needed the assistance for 6 months the other six months of tax payers hard earned money could have went to someone else. 

I am not sure if any of you have ever seen Madam Secretary, but I watched one clip and I must say that it peaked my interest. It was basically about a husband and wife who had two totally opposite views on morals and ethics. The father stated,"The whole purpose of ethics is that they cant be trumped." How many of you feel as if ethics is something that you must stand by regardless of the situation? The wife felt that in order to get things done she needed to compromise her ethics at some point. 

After reviewing the clip I sent it to a few friends and asked for their opinions on it. Some of my friends where unsure of where they stood on this point.They said they couldn't answer the question unless a situation presented itself. A few more of them said that they would not go against their personal code of ethics because that's all they have to go by. Lastly, one said that they would have to do what was needed to do what was best for them at that particular time. I personally feel as if I would have sided with the husband and stuck to what it was that I believed. What if you happened to go against it for someone and the outcome was not what you expected?

One of the many things that one of my grandparents taught me was, "If you ever run across someone and they state that they don't have any moral values...run!" Not having anything the to live by or drive you on a daily basis is scary. Its almost like waking up without a purpose or a set goal in life. If a person does not know what is important to them then they will not respect what is important to you! As we grow our expectations and the way we view things will change. However, we need to evaluate our choices and make sure that the decisions we make are ones that we can live with.