I found Ethics very interesting course. First reason that made me interested in this course is the lecturers. They are new professors with many years of experience and knowledge. Second, honestly to say, I didn’t have clear understandings about the meaning and knowing of ethics. So I was willing and desired to study this course.
During our first lecture I got to know what I did not know before. What’s more I liked the way of lecturer’s teaching. They were not only teaching, but also providing with their own life experience. In the class we were given some articles to discuss and present in groups. These articles were about ethical issues that are concerning (worrying) whole the world. While presenting our opinions about these topics we came across with different opinions that are opposing each other. After this I understood the main purpose of learning ethics.
As we know all of us have different views, perspectives and understandings of certain things. Sometimes we do not know what is right and what is wrong. Therefore we should be careful on making judgments. Otherwise it may lead to bad consequences like conflicts or even a war. For example, one of the articles was about a Sri Lankan young girl who was working as a babysitter in Saudi Arabia. She was accused of killing a baby. After several years of keeping her in prison the girl was killed. But to me it was cruelty. I think that it is an erroneous judgment toward her. Because they did not consider that she was no reason to kill her as she was poor and was working hard to help her family. I believe that it may be an accident as well. Even intervention of Sri Lanka and some other organizations could not change the decision of the Saudi Arabia Court. We are hearing many stories just similar to this. If you noticed there is many unfairness happening in this world, especially with the poor countries.
I hope and wish that this course will be beneficial to everyone on making moral judgments. In order to eliminate and avoid this kind of mistakes in future.
Week 3 Lying is worse than killing
Lying in general is a bad habit. One lie requires other lies. It may lead to bad consequences. I believe that every lie, sooner or later, comes out. But in some cases it is better not to tell the truth and lying is best option.
Our lecture told us a situation that I think every one of us is familiar with such a kind of situations. Once, a boy invited a girl to the conference to go together with him. As she liked this boy she agreed to go with him even though she did not like conferences. But another guy also invited her to the movies. She liked to watch movies, that is why she agreed to him also. But both of them were inviting to the same time. Now she needs to choose, that means she will have to lie to one of the guys or tell the truth and deal with the consequences instead of stressing yourself and get into more trouble. But is it always good? Sometimes not telling the truth will save someone else from being hurt or sad. Sometimes lying is bad and sometimes is good.
Another example to the good side of lying is relations between wife and husband and friends. By telling the truth you may break their relation and by telling lie you may save it.
I got to know some more about lying from my group mates while our discussion on topic “Lying is worse than killing”. As for me I think that lying is not worse than killing, because we can solve or prevent of occurring some problems as I told above. But some of my group mate were telling that lies are bringing fatal consequences such as wars between countries that are lying to each other. I agree with their opinions in some parts. It is true that because of lying millions of people are died. It means that these people were died because of believing to the lies. In contrast I think killing directly will be crueler. The consequence of lying depends on us.
Week 4 Confucianism
The topic of this week was Religions. Our respective lecture has explained different type religions and their rules and principles. There are many religions in the world such as Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism and so on. In this diary I would like to write about Confucianism religion.
Confucianism is very ancient religion that was founded in 6th-5th cent. BC in China. It is a way of life taught by Confucius. Sometimes viewed as a philosophy, sometimes as a religion, Confucianism is perhaps best understood as an all-encompassing humanism that neither denies nor slights Heaven. Confucianism has been followed by the Chinese for more than two epochs. It has deeply influenced spiritual and political life in China. Its influence has also extended to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
The terms “Confucianism“ and “Confucian,” derived from the Latinized Confucius, are not meaningful terms in Chinese. They are western terms, coined in Europe as recently as the 18th century. Confucius, the common name of Confucianism’s founder, is a Latinized form of the Chinese K’ung-fu-tzu, “Master K’ung.” Aside from its important ethical principles, Confucianism does not prescribe any specific rituals or practices. These are filled by the practices of Chinese religion, Taoism, Buddhism, or other religion which Confucians follow. It became an integral part of Chinese life and cultural heritage
Week 5
In this week we have learnt about ethics of different fields such as media, sport, internet and etc. During our tutorial we were divided into groups of 2 members. We also had a name of our group that made the beginning of discussion funny. The groups were called by the name of animals. There were monkey, donkey, cat, dog and others.
In our discussion we were supposed to find ethical value of other spheres. We wrote the pluses and minuses to each one of them. My group’s name was “Dogs” and we chose Business ethics. After discussing we found only several views. The discussion helped me think about other perspectives of the particular field.
WEEK 6 Eastern and Islamic ethics
This week the lecturer was about Eastern and Islamic ethics. I got to know more about other religions like Confucianism, Buddhism, Zarathustra, Islam and so on. After the lecture class I realized that society is generally based on its national religions. For example, Confucianism become a base of Chinese social, political life and philosophy; Shintoism and Buddhism mainly influenced Japanese life and Islamic countries live according to Islam rules and regulations. Religion plays important roles in forming society. But I need to mention that almost all religions have same purpose in terms of living piece and bringing happiness to all the people in the world.
As you know principles of Confucianism, Shintoism, Zarathustra are still practiced by many people. They have a great influence on countries of East Asia like China, Japan, Iran, Korea and so on. Now these countries are modern countries but we can see that they are still related to its religions. They were able to integrate with modern insights.
Let me talk about Japanese ethics and society that I am interested in. Japanese culture till now wonder me with their distinct attitude and behavior. It differs from other cultures with their discipline, politeness, cleanliness, hardworking attitude and collectiveness. I believe that they are developing in a rapid rates due to their very strong work ethics. The right teachings and practicing help Japanese people and society to develop and prosper.
From my own experience, I saw people who consider themselves as a religion person or in other words doing right things but the fact is that they are wrong in their actions. By doing this they are giving a bad impression to others about his or her own religion. I would like to comment that people should deeply understand the concept of the teachings and practice it in a right way.
There is a lot to say about teachings and religions that formed Chinese, Japanese, Persian and Islamic countries. But I can say one that all religions tend to lead people to a right way and keep them from the bad way in order to achieve peace, harmony and prosperity.
Week 8 Suicide and abortion
The following week we had a lecture about Suicide and abortion. We deeply have studied about these ethical issues that are under the discussion of all the people. And each of us has different opinion to these issues. There is no correct one answer to this dilemma. The reason is that, when some consider it as right, others consider as totally wrong.
First, I would like to analyze suicide. As you know suicide is killing one’s self. According to Divine Command Framework which claims that actions depend on laws of God, suicide is not accepted. In Islam it is big fault that leads the soul of person to hell and suffer after the death. Even it is not allowed to burden the person who made suicide. But from my point of view it is not correct. Because there may be a lot of reasons that made person to kill himself∕herself. It is not easy just make suicide, in fact the person who did it mostly will be mentally sick or weak that cannot bear the difficulties of life. That’s why they may do it unconsciously. On the other hand, it is unethical also, because there are many problems that we face during our life. It is true that making suicide is an easy way to get rid of all the problems but it will bring unhappiness to others (family, friends, and children). I think that there is not any problem in the world; the problem is in our mind. We create problems by ourselves. Considering and understanding this we can come to conclusion that suicide is not good and ethical.
Second issue is abortion. Abortion is killing a human being. Any one of us may come across with this issue. We can look to it from many perspectives. I would like to tell some of them. From religious perspective, only God can take or gave a life. There for it is wrong to do an abortion. However abortion is not always wrong and unethical action. It depends on the situation. There are some circumstances like financial condition, relationship problems, being not yet married that forces women to do abortion. Sometimes this action might be considered as right because the intention of women which is to not let the future baby to suffer from hunger or poverty is good and correct. I am not encouraging people to do abortion but trying to say that before judging women who did abortion we should first understand her situation and sympathy her.
Week 9 Contemporary ethical issue
This week we continued our previous topic that is “Contemporary ethical issue”. Ethical issues such as surrogate motherhood and euthanasia were discussed in this session. Our lecturer and tutorials became more interesting. The reason is that ethical issues are very debatable matter. And every student has its own view point to these topics. In our tutorial class we make a discussion. We were giving various questions to each other within theme. While giving my opinion I realized that I was thinking only from one perspective and considering it as true by rejecting others opinions. It is fortune that I got to know that we shouldn’t think only in one direction but we should understand and accept others opinion as well.
I would like to give my opinion to Surrogate motherhood ethical issue. As it was said in the lecture Surrogate motherhood occurs when another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the infertile couple. This is a good opportunity for childless family to have a baby. In addition they have another solution to this problem such as adopting a child from orphanages. If more people rely on adoption from orphanage then the number of children in the orphanage will be decreased and more children were happy. Moreover controversial views of surrogate motherhood state that this practice is equal to prostitution and it is unethical since woman provide bodily service in order to earn money. I think it is difficult to make a decision, whether to adopt or take from mother. I believe that some living consequences force them to take the action of surrogacy.
Once I asked my mother about what is the underlying and convincing reason of people to do surrogacy. She answered that, majority people who are taking this action believe that the child adopted from orphanage may have mental illness or diseases that passed through gene and also if the parents that gave a birth were bad (for instance: alcoholics, drug addicted and etc.) then the children also may become like them. Therefore, taking into consideration these aspects people are still taking the action of surrogacy.
Week 10 Same sex marriage, death penalty and animal rights
This week in Ethics lecture I studied about ethical issues: same sex marriage, death penalty and animal rights. I found this lecture interesting as I gained new information. Especially about the topic same sex marriage. I did not know much about same sex marriage, because I have never encountered and heard about this issue in my country before. Therefore it was unacceptable and unethical for me.
This is very arguable issue in modern society. According to statistics, majority of people are not accepting lesbians and gays. Some people are so anxious and angry about this that they are punishing them by ignoring beating and even killing them.
I would like to tell the advantages and disadvantages of same sex marriage according to ethical frameworks. First, Divine Command Framework asserts this as an unethical and immoral action. In religions it is said that people need to get married in order to form family and have children. But equal marriage is not able to carry out this function so it is unnatural. Therefore, same sex marriage according to this framework is not a right decision.
Second, Relativism Framework states that action depends on one’s own value system and rules in one’s society. Equal sex marriage might be considered as a right action because the one who takes an action believe that it is good and their community. For example Canada, Sweden and some other countries can allow such marriage.
Next framework which is Virtue Ethic also thinks same sex marriage as right action because person who takes an action has good intention of having family with a person whom she/he likes. So they may live longer and happy life.
As for me, I think that every one of us has own role as a men or women in this world and we should save the harmony of the nature. From my point of view same sex marriage is a result of dullness or modernism consequences.
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