Ethics: A Socio-Politico-Ideological Wishful Principle or Reality in “Social Responsibility?”

Ethics, defined by the Webster-Miriam Dictionary as (1) “a discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation”; (2) “the principles of conduct governing an individual or group”, and seemingly a needed protective principle in organizational bureaucracy, appears to not only be a complex and challenging phenomenon, but also a socio-politico-ideological wishful principle, in [Human] organizational behavior, especially, when it comes to its application. The complexity appears more apparent not only in definitions, but also in an effort to bridge the gap between Immanuel Kant’s principle of “Categorical Imperative” and Hobbes’ principle of Self-Interest, coupled with my untested theory of Human Agency (a proposition designed to explore the role of the actor as a “mover and shaker” with potential personal or group-affiliated interest in the pre-disposition of her/his duty in relation to her/his given status as authority-power in an organization. In other words, are ethics and morality the same thing or is there a third variable—law—that can be interjected into? Take for instance, in his work, entitled “Professional Ethics in Criminal Justice”, Albanese (2008), citing incident whereby students would buy laptops “to write their term papers and then returned the laptops”, writes, “This behavior is clearly not illegal, but it is clearly unethical” (p. 4). Do those students’ behaviors constitute ethical or moral or legal violation? In his scientific principle, Socrates, according to Ellwood (1944), observed that “We must know the meaning of the terms we use before we can convey truth from one mind to another”; that definition should be “the first step in science and the mark of its completion” (p. 15). Hall et.al (2000) defines morality as “the entire system of laws, principles, rules, and values by which we regulate our individual and social lives and conduct”; while defining ethics as “conditions and criteria of moral reasonableness….in conduct and attitudes that distinguishes the moral person…from the non-moral or immoral person’ (p. 8); law as “body of statutes or rules found in various codes of civil (manmade) law….designed to regulate commerce and transfer of property, to protect civil rights and to promote public safety” (p. 9). This paper, as an exploratory subject matter, is designed to understand and appreciate ethics and its complexity in an increasingly complex society and socio-political individual in relation to “social responsibility”, especially, in academic institutions where teachers/professors, staff, and students have varying expectations of one another in the execution of their duties within the context of the institutional culture. In other words, if the human individual is a socio-political animal as described by social scientists, operating in the context of Human Agency within an organizational behavior, at the same time is defined by a principle of Self-Interest, as observed by Hobbes (Ellwood, 1944), how does he/she, in the discharge of her/his social obligation or responsibility, is he/she able to effectively apply Kant’s principle of Categorical Imperative? Thus, the question, Ethics: Is it a Politico-Ideological Wishful Principle or Reality in Social Responsibility?