Ethical Biography Assignment: Source of Personal Ethics

Ethical Biography
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Introduction
Ethics revolves around right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior in society. It is about confirming to what is considered to be acceptable societal norms. Ethics is perceived into main perspectives which are personal and professional. Personal ethics are the norms that concern the self and are exercised at the individual level. Although they are dictated by society, often the decision making process is by a person. Personal ethics vary and are in most cases different depending on a person or a group of people. Professional ethics on the other hand is guided by a set of rules which aim at enhancing uniformity within a certain profession (Koch, 2011). For instance, doctors have a professional code of ethics that prescribe what is acceptable and unacceptable in their field of practice. This discussion has taken focus on ethics both at the personal and professional level while examining the origin of the same.
Source of Personal Ethics
Every person has a set of rules that guide him or her. Even those who commit crimes and engage in vices in society, they do so knowingly as they also have a sense of right and wrong. It is correct to say that what is considered to be ethically and morally right by one person of a group of people may not necessarily be the same for others. This is because different people derive their set of guiding pointers from different areas (Jones, 2010). For some, religion is the lye pillar in their life and hence influences their ethical standpoint. For others, it is the societal expectation and the norms. As for others, various experiences in their life shape their beliefs and conduct.
Of importance also to note is that people do not draw their personal ethics from a single source. Rather, personal ethics are made from multiple sources, partly religion, partly the societal and partly personal experiences. This explains the variation personal ethics among different people. If all people drew their ethics from one single source, then perhaps there would be more consensus among people the world over. The divergence in thinking among different people is evidence that people do not always share the same set of ethical principles.
Professional Ethics
Unlike personal ethics that is highly divergent, there is some level of uniformity in professional ethics. Professional ethics is a set of rules and regulations that regulate, control and guide...