Bonilla 1 Kristen Bonilla Mr.

Buescher Service Learning 14 November 2013 My Code of Ethics There are various factors in life that contribute to a persons perspective of what is moral. There are five specific topics which determine whether an action is right or wrong: the endangerment of myself or others, the overall outcome, the betterment of society, whether or not it will benefit my family/friends and how my parents view my actions. Out all of these factors, I value my parents opinion of me the most. I learned to excel in school because my parents wanted me to get good grades and make them proud. Eventually I learned that getting good grades pleased everyone so it was just a good thing to do- as they affect my future (especially now). I also began to realize getting good grades builds a great character. It teaches a person to work hard and to only reap from benefits they truly earn. As for my overall philosophy, I find myself in the Social-Contract Legalistic Orientation. This is because I do consider what will benefit society but I do not always do what is morally correct even if it goes against the law. The term good citizen can be extremely subjective. However in order to be a good citizen a person must follow the general rules and somehow contribute to their community. As for civic virtues, they are essential characteristics which make a good citizen. These characteristics include: generosity, honesty, loyalty, and compassion. These traits are vital because one can not claim to be a good citizen without the ability to demonstrate how they should treat people in need. Many people often say they are good, yet they do absolutely nothing to prove it. For example, many Christian churches tell their congregation to go and reach out to

Bonilla 2 the community. Every Christian knows this because it was the Great Commission.; it is their duty as a Christian to tell people about God and to especially help those who need it the most. Unfortunately, some people do not realize that they can not merely think about how nice it is to help people out in the community, they need to actually got and do something. Every other citizen thinks about this too. They decide that donating to charities is a good idea but most never actually make the effort to do anything. In order to be a good citizen, one should help out in their community. Throughout my life, I have been faced with various moral dilemmas. We face them every day in our society without even thinking twice. My biggest guilt comes from seeing homeless people on the side of the street and not doing anything about them. I usually justify my action by telling myself, Oh they can help themselves, or Theyll probably just use the money I give them for drugs and alcohol anyway. These should not be reasons why people sleep outside on the street every freezing night when I complain its a little cold as i wrap myself in my pile of blankets in my warm, two-story house. In the near future, I would like to adopt an approach used by a former principal. Every time she saw a homeless person on the street, she would buy them a Bible and Big Mac. This method is quite effective because food makes everyone happy and you have the chance to positively influence someones life forever. Every individual should undoubtedly have a code of ethics. A code of ethics maps out every detail about their philosophy and how they define right and wrong. If no one had a code of ethics, this world would be chaos. People would not comprehend what is morally correct so this would lead to everyone stealing, lying, cheating, etc. If people do not learn what is right how are they to know what is wrong. Most kids only know lying, stealing and cheating is bad because there are consequences that go along with these actions. If kids were not punished nor guilted

Bonilla 3 into believing these actions were bad, they would do them daily and they would just become a normal part of life. Now if everyone does these, someone could argue that it may not be that bad; however, people naturally do what helps and benefits themselves. People are going to begin to notice when a person steals from them or lies to them and they would probably end up getting hurt in some manner. However since it is not socially considered wrong the person would have no choice except to face the realities of living in a severely cruel world. There is so much in the world that one person can most definitely improve. This assignment has really reopened my mind to the fact that I know what a good citizen should be, yet I do almost nothing to act as a good citizen. There is constant suffering day after day and the biggest problems my generation has to worry about is if their social media application is not functioning. We need to all truly realize that there is in fact a world outside of cozy Solano County. America is not the only country that matters on this planet; there are so many other countries that need our help. Moreover it is great to have morality and ethics. However, lacking to make the slightest change with the gifts and knowledge you have essentially makes have civic virtues useless. People should all live to their full potential and utilize the moral character traits that they have been given.