The Tipping Point

Lamiah's question posted on 11/28/09, “Time concluded, ‘Ethics, often dismissed as a prissy Sunday School word, now is a new national debate’” (Larsen 22). Why, assuming we live in a rather “unethical” world, has unethical behavior progressed over the years? Is the problem, or part of it, that we believed good and honest behavior to be so “prissy” for so long and so we acted as “bad guys” to prove something? I am not referring to ethical behavior around the subjects of abortion, death penalty or adultery, but rather people’s choice to commit fraud, lie on a grand scale or purposely take advantage of others and/or incite them onto wrong-doing. The main question here is not how people should be punished for their actions, if at all, but why they committed those actions. Are we really worse now then we were ten years ago? Think of a current event where such behavior is apparent and relevant. How did the audience perceive the event? Does the reason it was done justify its means; for example, would a lie told by a presidential candidate be justified if its purpose was to win the election?

My response:

I agree with the quote mentioned in the beginning by Larsen, regarding the great impact the term "ethics" has made throughout the years. I also agree that over the years, humans have become increasingly "unethical" -- but only because we have been faced with more complex issues than the years before. The invisible scale that we measure the rights and wrongs of ethics on is still the same, but there are just a lot more things in between, is the way that I see it. Years ago, we did not even begin to fathom the question of hacking into a person's computer to steal a file or document for our own benefit. Today, it is a question that is often raised in our society. The game of ethics is still the same, but perhaps it is just played in a new way, with all these new additions to our lives, especially new forms of technology and communication that serve as tools for unethical behavior.
However, I do not think that we have thought that ethical behavior was "prissy" then, leaving it still to be "prissy" still today. I think that what is right will always be right, and there will be a reward for doing good things in the end, though it may be hard to believe at the moment, and as the saying goes, "what goes around, comes back around." In any case, whether it is a lie or it is the truth, I think the motive behind it all is the tipping point. A recent example would be the campaigns that we recently finished in class for the Communication Department Chair, in which Kelsey's group won. When we were voting, I couldn't help but think that the "honor system" in which we were voting was not the way to go about it. Not only was it because I questioned my very own colleagues, but more so because I was second guessing myself -- I wanted to check the box for my group so that we could win, so that our hard work could pay off -- all of these justifications came to mind, but I knew that the instant that these justifications came to my head, I was being unethical. I was thinking about cheating (though I knew I would not, in the end, cheat, I still had thoughts), and knew that it was wrong, but still, I pondered the thought of it. In this case, my reasons did not justify the act of cheating. On the other hand, if my aunt whom I had not seen for a very long time because she was ill, made a pie for Thanksgiving dinner especially for me because I love pie, but it turned out to be absolutely disgusting, what would I do? In this case, I would reason that, me acting as if the pie was delicious would not be unethical, although it clearly would be a lie in my head as well as in my taste buds. The fact that I can be able to fake that I appreciate someone else's hard work, in this situation, can justify my means for being "unethical," to an extent. The bottom line is, the motive behind my action or thought determines whether it is an ethical thing or not, and that is where the line is drawn.
Again, I wouldn't necessarily say that we are worse than we were ten years ago, but there are just so many more factors that tempt us to perhaps act more often upon doing "bad" things, solely because of the access to information we have now than we have ever had before. We tend to lie everyday, whether we know it or not. And maybe it has become such an innate thing, that we do not even notice that we fake a laugh or a smile just to satisfy the recipient. The way we ignore people, even by means of putting our noses into our mobile devices as we walk through campus to avoid professors and old roommates, show that unethical behavior is seen throughout the day, numerous times.