Ethical violations is a topic which is commonly seen in the media about countries who the United Nations has classified or labeled as countries facing ethical issues such as human rights violations within the country. Ethics is a branch of philosophy, which involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Ethics is branched off into three groups, which are Meta ethics, Normative ethics, and Applied ethics. Meta ethics is the focus on how we understand, know about, or what we mean when we talk about right and wrong.
Normative ethics is the study of what makes actions right and wrong and Applied ethics attempts to apply theories to real life situations. In the past, many countries, including the United States, were guilty of facing ethical issues and challenges within the country. Many countries held people imprisoned simply because of their cultural differences from the dominating culture. Some countries targeted and killed off particular groups because of the tone of their skin or a certain behavior they practiced.
Back when the United States was colony of Britain, many of the colonials hated the British because the British tried to impose their views and religious beliefs on people who were natively born inside the colony and away from the crown. In today’s society these issues still occur, but on a lower scale. Majority of the ethical violations today comes from people within the professional community. People who work in these fields are often found guilty of ethical issues such as, money laundering, fraud, racial profiling, accepting bribes, and using excessive force or abusing their authority to get what they want from others.
Many of these ethical violations often go undetected for years before anyone begins to notice them and many of the people who are found guilty often misuse the successes they gain from underestimating others, which eventually lead to them being captured by law enforcement. Another approach to understanding ethics and the way in which they are viewed is, understanding ethical dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas are approaches which aims at proving that an ethical system or moral code is wrong as well as, what encompasses or grows from it.
Five basic approaches for ethical dilemmas include, the Utilitarian approach, the Rights approach, the Fairness or Justice approach, the Common Good approach, and the Virtue approach. The Utilitarian approach is the ethical action, which does the most good or least harm or simply the one that does the most good. It tries to increase the good that is done and reduce the harm done. The principle to the utilitarian approach states that of any two actions, the most ethical one will produce the greatest balance of benefits over harm.
The Rights approach is the ethical action that best protects and respects the moral rights of those affected. The belief to the rights approach is that individuals have the right to be treated as ends and not as a means to another end. The principle to the rights approach states that an action or policy is morally right only if the people affected by the decision are not used as instruments for advancing some goal, but are fully informed and treated only as they have freely and knowingly admitted to their treatment.
The Fairness or Justice approach is the belief that everything should be created equally. This approach focuses on how fairly or unfairly our actions give out benefits and burdens among members of a group. This approach is based off Greek philosophers such as, Aristotle. The principle to this approach states that people should be treated the same unless there are morally relevant differences between them. The Common Good approach is the belief that life in a community is a good in itself and our actions should contribute to that life.
The approach believes that a community is comprised of individuals whose own good is bound to the good of the whole and the principle to this approach states what is ethical advances the common good. One last approach of Ethical dilemmas is the Virtue approach, which is the idea that ethical actions should be consistent with certain ideal virtues such as, honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, tolerance, love, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence. In the virtue approach, a person has a conscious about their actions and questions the morality of their actions.
The principle to the virtue approach states that what is ethical is what morally develops between a person and their community. Snow, a novel written by Orhan Pamuk, is a story about the political and religious issues taking place in Turkey. Majority of the story takes place in the winter in Kars, Turkey, which is one of the poorest cities in Turkey. The author opens the story by giving a brief description of the main character of the story and an explanation of his trip to Kars Turkey.
The main character Ka, is a news journalist from Instanbul, Turkey. He is forty-two years old and single. Ka is traveling to Kars because he has interest in the municipal elections taking place and also to report on the suicide death of many young girls there. During his trip, he tells the people he meets that he is a reporter coming to report on the recent suicides of the girls, which the author stated was a lie. Ka is also visiting Kars because he hopes to find a girl he was once in love with, Ipek, to bring her back to Frankfort Germany.
Ka is a very ignorant man and refuses to listen to anyone that tells him to stay home and away from Kars and Ipek. When Ka arrived to Kars, he was amazed at the beauty and the silence of the snow. He was greeted by everyone from the assistant mayor to the poorest man in the city and they all treated him like a famous journalist. Upon arriving, Ka was also introduced to Serday Bay, the publisher of the Border City News and after meeting with him and getting his police escort, Ka set out on his journey to gather information on the suicides of the girls in Kars.
The majority of the houses which Ka visited, stated that the reason why many of the girls in the town committed suicide was due to family problems, such as arranged marriages, being poor, and depressed. Once Ka returned back to his room, he began to look through the history of Kars and as he read, he thought to himself that his city, Istanbul, could possibly head the direction of Kars or even worst, the whole country of Turkey. During this period in Turkey’s history, the country was facing a threat of being overtaken and ruled by radical religious Islamic politicians.
In some areas of the country, such as the city in which Ka visited, this was already taking place. During Ka’s visit, he learned that the mayor of the city of Kars was assassinated and that a new radical religious leader was now in power. While in power, the government of Ka changed, and if effected woman the most. Women in the city were under the control of men; they had no rights, and were not free according to the law. Most of the women in the city were uneducated and poor and wanted to be relieved from political oppression and live life freely.
Another issue occurring in the city was that many of the young girls were victims of arranged marriages. Many were forced to marry men they didn’t know and at times, the men they had to marry were ten to twenty times their age. Many of the women who were victims of the arranged marriages experienced psychological disorders and depression. During Ka’s journey, he learned that many of these young girls were sold off to the men by their families and were forced to spend the rest of their lives with them until death put them apart. The young girls weren’t allowed to visit their families and many were uneducated.
They were also separated from society and weren’t allowed to have any friends. As a result of these marriages, many of the young girls began to commit suicide as a way to escape. The arranged marriages, which the young girls in Turkey were forced to take part in, are in violation of the virtue approach of the ethical dilemmas. As stated previously, the virtue approach is the idea that ethical actions ought to be consistent with certain ideal virtues such as: honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, tolerance, love, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence.
The young girls in the community were lied to, beaten, and were treated like salves. They didn’t have any rights and didn’t have the right to say, “No”, to the marriages. The actions of the young girls families and their assigned husbands showed them that the dominating people of their community didn’t love them. This issue also violates the Fairly or Justice approach of the ethical dilemmas, which again states that all equals should be created equally and focuses on how fairly or unfairly our actions distribute benefits and burdens among the members of a group.
The government didn’t look out for the fair treatment of the young girls instead they were let down. Women in Eastern Turkey weren’t treated equally and many faced the mistreatment of their male companions. The government looked toward the women in the same matter. They didn’t care about the women and only wanted a torturing way of dealing with them. During the period of history, the country of Turkey was going through a genocide, which they continue to deny today.
The genocide which occurred and referred to as the Armenian Genocide or the Armenian Holocaust, which killed off the Turkish Armenian population during and after World War I. The killings were done by massacres and deportations, which included forced marches under extreme conditions fit to lead to the death of the people marching. It is believed to be one of the first modern genocides, which were carried out in an organized way to eliminate the Armenian people. During the whole ordeal, it is believe that over one million people were killed. This issue violates the Fairness or Justice approach of the ethical dilemmas approaches.
As stated previously, the Fairness or Justice approach is the belief that all equals should be created equal and it focuses on how fairly or unfairly a person’s actions could put benefits and burdens on people of a certain group. Many of the Armenian people lived in the same communities as regular Turkish peoples. They all enjoyed the same qualities of life and enjoyed living life and for the most part, many of them probably got alone with one another. The Turkish officials however, formed an alliance to get rid of the Armenian people all because of their beliefs and cultural differences.
The acts of the Turkish officials also violates the Common Good approach, which as mentioned previously, states that life in a community is a good in itself and our actions should contribute to that life. The Turkish officials didn’t give the Armenian people a chance, they didn’t care about the welfare of their communities, and neither did they care about the homes of the Armenian people. The Turkish officials placed the Armenians in concentration camps, which were later formed as massive graves for the millions of people who were killed off by the Turkish army.
