A Question of Ethics

Mood: Pensive
Music: Jamiroquai

Have you ever been put in a position where very good things could happen to/for you, but you would have to compromise your ethics in order to do so?

Okay, let's step that back a little. It's not MY ethics I'd be compromising, because personally I don't think what the situation is is a problem, however, some of my peers and fellow academics would find the situation a little unethical.

So really, it's not my problem, but it's more the problem my friends and peers would have if I did what I want to do.

Now I'm sure you're all asking, "What the hell is he talking about?" Well, I wish I could tell you, because that might make it quite a bit easier to answer, but I can't. The constraints of my work and my position as a semi-public person won't let me talk about it openly. I guess to relate you would jsut have to think about something that you felt was okay but others might disagree.

Now usually I have no problem doing something unethical if I feel it's for the greater good (Stacey Campfield learned that one the hard way when I published his private e-mails all over the newspaper and the web. And really, the only person that probably wishes I hadn't done that is, well, Stacey Campfield).

But there is no greater good being done by this so called "ethics violation." It would be for my own personal gain. Now no one would be hurt by it, and no one would find out either, and it's not like I'd be breaking a law or anything, but is someone were to find out, they would probably consider it a little unethical.

I dunno. Since there is no risk and no danger, I really don't know what the problem is. I think a part of it is that this obscenely PC culture we live in. 20 years ago it would have been encouraged. Not anymore, though. It's really not anyone's business but my own anyway.

I guess, though, that if I were to do this I would be saying that there are times that it is okay to act unethically. I think that's true to a point. Because no man is made of iron. As long as we strive for the best we can be, it's okay to have shortcomings. We are human, after all.