Jour 4470: Ethics - Post 1

According to the Webster Dictionary, ethics are defined as a system of moral principles and rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc. Who is to judge what is ethical and not? Are they merely up for a vote or someone’s opinion? Humankind has put ethics into separate categories, like Utilitarianism, relativism, and postmodern ethics. Who is to say who is right and who is wrong?

With each decision I make everyday, I run it through an ethical filter with which I determine what is right or wrong for me. What may seem like a positive decision for me to make, may be the opposite for someone else.

While searching through ABC news archives, I stumbled on an article that discussed the ethical debate of embryo screening and whether or not it should be offered for disease prevention. For one party, they may agree with embryo screening to ensure any genetic mutation passed down from the parents was absent in the baby’s DNA. For another party, they may feel that it opens a Pandora’s box of Build-A-Babies everywhere. There are no conclusions as of yet, but Yury Verlinsky, director of the Reproductive Genetics Institute, feels that the public should decide.

"I think the decision has to be in the hand of the patients," says Verlinsky. "We have the technology in preventive medicine to help with the decision. I cannot press my ethics on somebody else and I have two options: to participate or not to participate."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=116970&page=1

The debate between what is good and evil will forever be a battle between moral codes and opinions. Postmodernism argues that what is right for you is good for you and what is right for another is good for them. In the world of strategic communications, there must be certain codes of conduct that we apply to our public relations profession.

If an organization wants you to withhold certain information that would not be beneficial for that organization, yet would be beneficial for stockholders, where do you draw the line? Do you agree to do as your organization tells you or is your loyalty to the organization’s customers?

A constant search for the morally right is an ongoing struggle that will be debated over for many years to come. We have made some ground as public relations professionals by instilling a code of ethics among our profession, but there will continually be gray areas that will stretch our reasoning.