Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

Ethics and Morals

Measures of validating morals and ethics

Comment by Sabina:

Measures of Validating Morals and Ethics

Ethics and morals are essential parts of our society. We rely on members of our society to practice and provide service with an adequate level of moral and ethical values. Ethics is the conviction within each individual that determines good or evil, it is not always a matter of legal or illegal, it is a matter of right and wrong. Morals is a set level of standard that we hold for ourselves, it helps us to make decisions about good and bad, right and wrong and helps us to differentiate the difference between right and wrong. Every different profession in today's world is governed by different ethical bodies that help to regulate professional ethics. Scholars and researches utilize different methods of validating ethics and morals in their profession. In this paper I will discuss some of the tools utilized by different scholars to determine moral and ethical commitments.

Business ethics was developed business ethics in the 1970's as a response to unprofessional and unethical behaviors (Arnold, Audi & Zwolinski, 2010). This committee was established to govern the ethical practices of businesses. The committee has established rules and regulations to govern the ethical practices of business and employees. Professionals in this field validate the ethics and morals of business through audits and carefully monitored processes. When rules are broken consequences are applied such as revoking of licenses, and even possible jail time. There are ethics committees that are established in the government to govern political actions by politicians and those we elect. These ethical committees are responsible to auditing complaints about politicians and government officials. This is the strongest tool the government utilizes to ensure morality and ethics practices are fair.

Experts have found collecting information about morality is most often collected by asking participants to rate their own morality. "The internalization dimension captures the extent to which the moral self-schema is experienced as being central to one's self-definition" (Shao, Aquino, & Freeman, 2008). Researchers have found moral identity is directly related to actions of moral outcomes. Scholars collect the information directly from the participants; however they use scientific methods to validate the research.

Reliability and validity are the two most common tools utilized by researchers and scholars to test theories and validate ethical practices. Reliability and validity are considered necessary components in research (Bannigan & Watson, 2009). Validity refers to the degree in which the test, scale or research method measures what it was intended to measure. Reliability refers to the stability of a measure scale (Bannigan & Watson, 2009). These are all important aspects of ensuring the ethics and morality of research collected. Researchers use repetition method to validate and test theories. Research is conducted, and repeated multiple times to ensure the same steps are repeated and the outcome is similar. Scholars evaluate these practices through the use of ethical committees and establishing ethical rules and principles that practitioners in the field must adhere to. There are established guidelines that practitioners in any field must subscribe to and practice.