Ethics in personal life refers to the standards of conduct and behaviour of an individual with respect to his or her moral

principles and values.

This moral values may differ from one individual to another and from one situation to another.
The most important thing in ethical behaviour is our feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction about the decisions we take during the course of dealing with situations and events in our lives. Thus ethics is about self education and self regulation- as to how to be guided in actions and decisions by some moral principles and values so that one is satisfied about his or her actions and its outcome.

 The ultimate aim of ethical behaviour and practice is to feel satisfied and not necessarily justified about ones conduct and behaviour or action and its outcome. Acting in keeping with ones ethics also involves making an effort to know the possible consequences of ones action and then to be sure that the action is to his or her satisfaction.

Ethics guide the society about acceptable principles of what is morally right and wrong and aim to enforce the discipline of conformance to those principles. Ethics is about enforceable morality, justice and fairness of conduct, actions and governance by individuals, institutions, companies, organizations, socities and governments.

 Morality of actions are the yardsticks of ethics. To determine whether a person has been ethical, his or her moral beliefs and moral standards have to be examined by moral reasoning- with reference to what is right or wrong. Very often morality and ethics are used interchangeably, despite having a very fine distinction. Ethics expect a person to uphold certain moral principle and values that are regarded as absolute and necessary to live and let others live in a society without any harm or detriment.

CHARACTERSTICS OF MORAL STANDARDS 1. Deal with subject matters that have serious implications in society, environment and workplace irrespective of whether the implications are beneficial or harmful. 2. 3. They are self regulatory They are not guided by self interest or other non moral standards and values. They are based on impartial considerations They are self inflicting

4. 5.

MORAL REASONING FOR ETHICS Acc. To Lawrence Kohlberg there are three levels of our development of moral understanding: Level 1: Childhood stages Punishment and obedience Instrument and relativity orientation

Level 2: Conventional Stages Interpersonal concordance Law and order orientation Level 3: Principled Stages Social contract orientation Universal ethical principles

MORAL REASONING Tries to logically place or project facts and figures that help one to judge human behaviour etc as to whether they are in accordance to or in violation of acceptable moral standards. There can be two components of reasoning: 1) An understanding of what acceptable moral standards means what exactly the standards require, prohibit, condemn or value with regard to the specific situation 2) Evidence or information which shows that persons, policies or behaviour have the kind of features that these moral standards require, prohibit, condemn or value.