Journal #11: Ethics/Values

Ethics and Values. Wow. That's another really, almost impossibly vague blog topic. So...ethics. Ethics are just defined as a system of moral principles. Pretty much everyone in the world has a system of their own ethics, and pretty much everyone's ethics are at least a little bit diffferent from each other. For instance, there are some people that think that it is perfectly okay to get all up in someones bubble, and other people respect boundaries as part as their own personal ethics. But that's okay, because sometimes you just have to tolerate people and understand that everyone acts differently.

Values are a little harder to describe...my beloved www.dictionary.com says they are 'relatives worths, merits, or importance'. So they are a lot like ethics, and just like ethics, basically everyone has a different set of values going on. It all depends on how you think and behave. Factors like environment, upbringing, and religion also have a big impact on a persons system of ethics and values. But another definition of the word 'values' is 'to regard or esteem highly'. This pertains more to material possessions or people rather than personal beliefs. For instance, a person can value their friends, but that does not have much to do with their 'values'.

Ugh. They're similar but still different, if that makes even a little bit of sense. Like cubic zarconia vs. real diamonds. They look like they are the same thing, but the huge difference comes into play when you look at the cost. There's a big difference between Gordman's and Tiffany's, if you get what I'm saying here.

Okay, back to ethics. If you google the word 'ethics', a bunch of pictures of those old fashioned scales/weighing things come up. That is because ethics is a balance (really clever, because the pictures are of balancing scales...) of good and bad and right and wrong and all that kind of fun stuff. There are a whole bunch of different branches of ethics in philosophy, but they can be really hard to understand, because ethics in general are pretty hard to understand.