Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Ethics - Essay Example The paper will then evaluate the relation of the first situation and then the second situation in terms of the aforementioned points of view. Later on the essay will discuss the interplay of ethical principles in both cases and how they interact with each other, and the paper will end with a conclusion that sums up the whole essay. Therefore, the paper aims to discuss the specific situations of the scientists, defines the concepts of deontology and consequentialism, as well as analyzes the situations in both points of view and from that it will ascertain which scientist is right. Ethics refers to the â€Å"code of moral standards by which people judge the actions and behaviors of themselves and others†.1 Ethics is a set of rules and regulations that define as well as govern the morality of a person’s conduct in various professional fields. Different professions demand following of different ethical theories and it is the same in case of different regions as well. Thus d eriving a universal ethics that can be applied uniformly in all fields and regions is impossible. Therefore, keeping this is mind, various ethicists have come up with ethics suitable for the respective professions and regions, which has led to the origin of several ethical theories that include relativism, absolutism, deontology or duty ethics, Kantian theory, utilitarianism, consequentialism, virtue ethics etc. The paper at hand thus deals with deontology and consequentialism in terms of the two cases given. The first case describes the situation of scientist A, where she deliberately modifies the data related to her experiment so as to achieve success in the experiment. Her act of distorting the data is against the moral code of conduct, or rather the ethics. Ethics is built upon certain values and the act of distortion here overrides these values, some of which are honesty, integrity and responsibility. She becomes dishonest by changing the data and modifying it in order to make the experiment successful, thus she does not follow the principle of â€Å"honesty†.2 By not keeping the data in its original form, she also neglects the value of â€Å"integrity,† by being untruthful to herself as well as others around her, which would later on lead to the development of a guilty conscience.3 ‘A’ further breaches the ethics of responsibility, as she does not fulfill her obligation of submitting clean and unbiased data. Therefore, it is observed that scientist A deliberately distorts data in order to create a successful scientific experiment, thus intentionally violating ethical values such as honesty, integrity and responsibility. The second case describes the situation of scientist B, where she has omitted some data due to her carelessness. But it is said that the consequences were same in both the cases, which means despite her omissions, she succeeds in the experiment. In this case, the scientist has not deliberately tampered with data , rather the data has been changed due to a state of being unaware. However, this unawareness stems from negligence or ignorance from the part of B, as she has not gone through the data again and made sure if it was completely accurate. Therefore, it can be discerned that she breaches the ethics of responsibility, as she does not cross check her data at any time of the experiment, thus unintentionally leading to distortion of data. It is natural for human beings to make