RE: Ethics and Job-Hunting

Subject: RE: Ethics and Job-Hunting
From: KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 13:14:32 -0500

Relax. Tech writing is an honorable profession, and
most subject matter is ethically neutral, or amoral.

Most of the disagreement here arises from the fact
that most people do not take the time to work out
the underlying "whys" of what they consider their
ethical beliefs.

Many people like to think that there are two kinds
of ethics:

1) principled and

2) situational.

The functional difference is that when you understand
why a principled ethicist does something (or refuses
to do something) you can predict what they'll do
next week, and in almost any situation. A situational
ethicist's reasons for doing (or not doing) something
apply to the current situation.
Just because a future situation may have the same
underlying ethical pivots does not mean you can count
on the situationalist to do the same thing, or to
profess the same reasons as in today's situation. Their
agreement with your position today is... accidental.

If you subscribe to situational ethics, then, in a very
real sense it doesn't matter what you say about a
question or a situation, because your ethics are
a weathervane.

"Oh, yes, last week I did say it would be unethical
to stab you in the back. But, that was last week.
The wind has changed." (Or the price of oil went up,
or I've got a new girlfriend... or, the voices, the voices...)

Work out the underlying reasons for your claimed
ethical beliefs. If you have some beliefs that seem
to conflict, then examine the supporting reasons
until you discover the error. Similarly, if a situation
offers you a conundrum, then go back to the most
basic principles (that's why you take some time to
work out what those principles are...), and you
have a litmus.

If you encounter too many situations that just don't
want to resolve against your principles, then maybe
that's a clue that the principles still need some
work.

Yeah, I know. "Work". You thought it was all over
when you went two whole weeks without your Mom
whackin' your behind. You had figured out this
"right and wrong" business. Well no... what you
had done was latch onto some patterns of behavior
that kept you out of trouble in the context of
Mom and school. They may have been perfectly good
back then, and they may still be good. But only
when you understand what *made* those behavior
patterns good, in terms of principles, can you
own a means of generalizing and of applying to
situations that are outside of that childhood scope.

Situations like accepting your next job offer... or not.

/kevin

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