Ethical Guidebook

A discussion of the difference between our personal values and our public ethics, how mature citizens can support both, and why our love for public ethics must trump our love for personal and group values when they conflict in the public space. Ethics offers a guidebook for evaluating public issues and finding multilateral solutions to endless cycles of values centric conflicts and unilateral violence.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Work Ethics

We routinely use the phrase 'good work ethics' to describe folks who put dedication to fairly supporting good processes, open communication, and a commitment to meet the public interest as well as the business interest, above short-term personal or business gain that might shortchange or cheat on long term business or public interests. Similarly we use the phrase 'good business ethics' to describe folks who put dedication to fairly supporting all participants in a business - including workers, and a commitment to meet the public interest as well as the long term business interest, above short-term personal, management, or shareholder gains. We don't use the word 'values' to describe these kinds of ethics, because 'values' is too ambiguous and does not capture the essense of ethics - the love of fairness above selfishness, the love of good process above special cases, and the love of long term interests above short term gain. Let's apply this same love of ethics over values, to our work, our business, and our government as we support fair solutions to our environmental and economic challenges in both good and bad times.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home