Ethics

=Ethics and Social Responsibility=

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are two fundamental problems in identifying the ethical standards we are to follow: 
 * 1) On what do we base our ethical standards?
 * 2) How do those standards get applied to specific situations we face?
 * 3) How do relative ethics compare to universal ethical standards? Should ethics ever be relative? How can this lead to dangerous thinking? Provide rationale for your answer.
 * Relative ethics is usually something like sociological relativism, the belief that there are many moral laws and these laws are relative to the place, times, and circumstances of a people.
 * Universal ethics is that there is only one eternally true and valid moral code which applies to everyone, all places, and all times. This universal moral standard is true whether or not you and I are aware of it.

A Framework for Thinking Ethically