Education and Ethics

I am moved to post this article due to the overwhelming unethical behaviors in the of education. More recently, Butterfield, Trevino, and Weaver (2000) defined moral awareness as “a person's recognition that his or her potential decision or action could affect the interests, welfare, or expectations of the self or others in a fashion that may conflict with one or more ethical standards” (p. 982). Determining whether a decision “conflicts with one or more ethical standards” requires an analysis of how the decision compares against standards of moral behavior, a process that threatens to confound the constructs of moral awareness and moral judgment. Instead, what is required is merely an acknowledgment that such comparisons are appropriate; that moral standards are relevant to the issue's contents; and that the individual can justifiably apply the vocabularies, frameworks, and tools of moral analysis to the situation. Lindsey, Robins, & Terrell (1999) found that ethical decision-making on behalf of students of color is enhanced when leaders achieve cultural proficiency. Culturally proficient leadership is defined as leadership which goes beyond the esteeming of culture to take every opportunity to increase formally and informally the awareness level and knowledge base of self and others about culture and about the dynamics of difference. Such leaders are able to identify issues of class, caste, culture, gender, and ability which are barriers to the implementation of change initiatives to improve educational opportunities for all children.
My conclusion is that no matter how hard we strive to be objective, a value derived from the rational scientific approach, in our empowerment efforts, this is simply not possible. In many respect, modern physics has clearly demonstrated that the old-styled approach of neutrality of the observer is a fiction there is no such thing as being neutral. Whether we like it or not, we affect the world by virtue of our personal histories and preferences, and also the cultural paradigm we were raised in. We see, hear and respond to the world according to what we are capable of seeing, hearing and responding to. For example, a medically-trained professional would tend to view an emotional imbalance as the result of a chemical imbalance, and thus the solution would focus upon restoring that chemical imbalance. However, a psychologist would view the chemical imbalance as the result of an emotional imbalance, and seek to address the emotional issue. In the same way, a government would view small-scale farmers as having the potential to form the back-bone of a viable export economy. However, that same small-scale farmer may view his (or her) activities as purely focused upon supplying his or her family with food. Therefore, these two agents (government and the farmer) may view agricultural development very differently, and may express completely different needs and priorities. The importance of this issue should not be under-estimated, as it represents a fundamental bridge that psychosocial sciences need to cross in order to be on a par with modern physics and related sciences. Therefore there is no such thing as objectivity. It is a physical and psychosocial impossibility. Some argue that we should at a minimum try to be objective, even though it is impossible. From my point of view, the upholding of the ethic of neutrality is not only impossible, it is also counter-productive.
Therefore, the level of unethical behavior in business is no different now than it has been in the past, it is just that we now have methods of detecting the unethical activity. If we want to create a proactive methodology of reducing ethical risks, we must revisit our present ways of doing business and incorporate better strategies for supporting what is best for our business culture. We can start by revamping our communication process and aligning the appropriate consequence systems. As leaders this is impossible to be completely unethical due to the rigorous demands of our employers.

References
Butterfield, K. D., Treviño, L. K. & Weaver, G. R. (2000). Moral awareness in business organizations: Influences of issue-related and social context factors. Human
Relations, 53, 981-1018.


Lindsey, R.B., Robins, K.N., Terrell, R.D. (1999). Cultural proficiency: A Manual for school leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin