Introduction
Strength refers to the ability to maintain certain conduct consistently, while grace refers to the good deed that earns favor from people and God. It takes great character to maintain a specific way of acting and the deed inspired by the right reason. Ethical decisions tend to interfere with other decisions, hence, the author preferring people to use strength and grace as opposed to ethics in decision-making.
Ethics is an integral component of socialism and guides human behavior to ensure the peaceful co-existence among individuals (Pollock, 2012). Ethics not only ensures smooth relations, but also promotes justice and equality. Ethics is subject to principles, which guide a person’s conduct.
Ethical guidelines can be based on either religion or logical principles. When ethical decisions are being made, they sometimes require a combination of religious and logical principles (Albanese, 2008). Though ethical decision are sometimes required, not all ethical decisions are appropriate. This essay answers the question by describing situations that favor strength and grace in decision-making as opposed to ethics.
Why strength and grace are preferred over ethics
Ethical decision-making process appears to be a complex one. Ethics is mostly morally based, which makes it focus more doing good to others. In this view, ethical decisions tends to benefit one at the expense of others. To this end, most people, who make ethical decisions tend to neglect themselves. Ethics require one to be considerate and affectionate towards other, and in the process, the decision maker does not benefit from the decision at times.
The ethical decision-making process requires some factors be addressed by ethicists before the resolution is achieved. The process of consideration entails the vital practice of critical thinking. It is as a result of this process that Albanese (2008), advocates for strength and grace because of the process of decision-making.
There are a lot of considerations to be made by ethicists, which tends to take a lot of time and therefore, requires a lot of critical thinking. Critical thinking takes into account facts, views, and acts, objectively, in order to validate a conduct. The views and facts must be therefore, taken into account before making a decision. Due to these considerations, ethical decisions tend to take a lot of time, and hence, are not preferred in situations that require quick resolutions.
Although ethics guide our actions under unclear circumstances, ethical decisions seem to be affected by the views of interested parties, who get to know of the decisions through the fast and wide information dissemination enabled by technology. Albanese (2008), avers that in future, there will be an ethical dilemma due to the technology age. The dilemma arises due to a lot of individual’s interests involved, unlike in the past where the print and electronic media usage was not that rampant.
Albanese (2008) captures the ethical dilemma of two top newspapers in the United States regarding the publication of a terrorist outfit, “The Unabomber”. The newspapers were torn as to whether they should publish the terrorists’ manifesto or not. The publication of the terrorists manifesto by the New York Post and Washington Post caused a public uproar from quarters that thought it was unethical.
Looking at the decision ethically compounded decision-making because different ethical theories, such as the Utilitarian and Kantian, advocate for different courses of action, which when considered leaves the decision-maker at an impasse resolution-wise (Pollock, 2012). The decisional crossroad makes one unable to act decisively since the situation introduces a lot of doubt.
Individual decisions seem to suffer a negative toll from ethical considerations. Pollock (2012) assert that ethical decisions compound individual decisions due to the fact that societal standards define whether a decision is right or wrong. An individual’s decision is overruled by ethical considerations under certain circumstances. To this end, ethics makes decision-making difficult.
The plausible thing to do, since not all decisions can be subject to societal approval, is to employ strength and grace when finding solution and trust that the decision made are good. By choosing logical rather than an ethical method of coming up with solutions, the bottlenecks posed by ethics are circumvented and an amicable solution that is less time-consuming is achieved.
Conclusion
Ethical guidelines are subject to both religious and logical principles, but the ethical-decision making process sometimes appears to be in contrast with the logic process. Ethical decisions require lot of critical thinking, which is time-consuming and sometimes an individuals’ decision is subject to interested party’s validation.
These demerits make ethical decisions untenable under most scenarios, and thus, force an individual to make choices that are contrary to what ethics would uphold. Such choices do not mean that the decisions are wrong, but rather that ethics does not completely agree with them. Instead of dismissing such decisions upfront, it is prudent that they are analyzed and scrutinized under the context in which the decisions were made, by the individual, before being rendered obsolete.
References
Albanese, J. (2008). Professional ethics in criminal justice: Being ethical when no one is looking (3rd ed.). Pearson Education, New Jersey.
Pollock, M. (2012). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.