Ethics

In my understanding, Ethics whether we like it or we dislike it, we all have to learn to be ethical. People who have ethics and without ethics are the same as people who are civilised and uncivilised. Being an ethical person is very subjective as what might be ethical in Florida might not be in Malaysia. For example, nude beach in Florida is acceptable and ethical to that country but in Malaysia, being nude on any beach would create lots of unwanted attention as it is not acceptable by the country thereby being not ethical. 

Yesterday 16th of May in the monorail, some ladies was being unethical as she was sitting on the reserved seats for those less fortune. Knowing full well that there was an old lady in front, she closed her eye and slept. Luckily the other lady gets up and let her seat in. In my own opinion, if i were to seat on those seats, i would give it up to anyone who seems like they need it. Although i am not sure if i should be even sitting on those seats in the first place. I know if I don seat there, many others would seat on it as if it was a normal seat. Thus, the ethical dilemma here is that is it alright to seat at those seats or should people seat and give the seat to those fortuned people when in sight? 

Besides that, last week I and my friends were to go on a trip and we decided to meet at a specific location at 5pm. I was there on the dot however my friends were all late about an hour plus. In Malaysia, it is very common to be late but is it ethical to make your friend wait when you have already promise to meet at a certain time? Should i get mad and cancel the plan? In other country such as Hong Kong, if they say meet at 5 they all will be there on time being late cannot be an excuse for them. Most of the time, they would say because is jam but is just their excuse for leaving late. Thus, in Malaysia it is almost like a culture for people to be late so my question is that is it ethical to be late with a valid excuse such as jam?

 Recently, while i was in Starbucks, a random lady came to me and asks if she could use my laptop for a moment as she would like to use her Maybank online. In my mind i was feeling awkward, immediately as i was doing my Ethics assignment, i started thinking about ethics (Should i let her use or shouldn't i?). The question running in my mind was is it ethically right to let her use my laptop or is it ethically right for her to randomly ask someone to borrow her their laptop for her own personal stuff. All this happen in my mind in a flash and i replied sure. In my opinion, i felt that she was very open and ethically it was alright to let her use my laptop. Moments later, she started asking question and sharing stories about herself to reduce the awkwardness between me and her. She only asked general questions which i feels that shows that she is an ethical person as she don just rush and start invading my personal matters.  In addition to that, towards the end of our conversation, she wanted to smoke and asked me whether i am alright with that (basic manners), this also shows ethics. 

However, all that may just be might opinion. The dilemma here is that, is my opinion of ethics the same with others? Everyone has different upbringing by their family. Thus, everyone has different perspective of what ethics really is. Although there are some common situations of ethics for everyone such as throwing away your rubbish in a proper rubbish bin.

In conclusion, it is important to learn what ethics is all about not because we learn ethics to be 100% ethical all the time but to be able to differentiate what is ethically right and what is ethically wrong.