Sooooo, you’ve found yourself in an ethics class, and you’re not really sure what to do with it.

Why should you care about ethics in the first place?

Interestingly, that question will be the easiest one we tackle all semester. You should care about ethics because living an ethical life will ultimately lead to a better life for you and the people you care about.

Let’s look at the statement “Life isn’t fair.” You hear people justify their

unjust actions all the time with this overused and cliched phrase. Most of the time, they are using it to make themselves feel better because they have just behaved in an “unfair” manner. Just because life is unfair doesn’t mean it should always be that way. If we can work toward living ethical lives, we can eliminate some of those “unfair” instances by doing what we ought to do.

So, the next question is the difference in law and morality/ethics. Is there a difference? Sure there is. While there is some overlap, murder for example is both illegal and unethical. Speeding is a little different. It is illegal, but not always unethical. Other examples that cross and/or blur lines are things like adultery (unethical but not illegal), slavery (was once legal but definitely unethical), lying (unethical but not usually illegal), and mutilation of female genitalia (legal under Sharia law but definitely unethical). There are countless examples, but you get the idea.

We also discussed what the pay-offs are for living an ethical life, and you heard me say SEVERAL times that an ethical life isn’t about the short game. It’s all about the long game. The pay-offs aren’t what you get today, this week, or even this month. The pay-offs come incrementally over the course of weeks, months, and years. We listed several things in class, but the general consensus is that your life is just better in every way – less stress, more money, and better relationships. You may not be the life of the party, but your life definitely doesn’t suck.

We went on to look at the two types on integrity – internal and external integrity. Both require a commitment and mindfulness. Internal integrity is the idea that your whole and complete because what you do isn’t in conflict with what you feel like you ought to be doing. External Integrity is different but linked. It is the commitment to living according to ethical principles – it’s putting your thoughts and “ought to’s” into practice to makes sure that your internal integrity stays solid. It’s treating the janitor and the CEO with the same level of respect.

So, we’re left with our three words – forbidden, permitted, and required. Those words are what we are going to us to tackle our most difficult ethical dilemmas. This helps us avoid judgemental phrasing and remove the emotional attachments that many people use to cloud their arguments. The goal is to build your moral arguments around evidence and sound ethical theory. This might make you uncomfortable or even question some positions you’ve always held because you find they were based solely on emotion and not evidence, theory, or a sound argument. I hope you’re ready to deal with some hard truths about life, ethics, and maybe even yourselves. Let’s get to it!