Ethics: Principles of Right and Wrong

Webster defines ethics as; "the discipline dealing with which is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation." (McMahon, 2019). It is a branch of philosophy that deals with well-defined standards of right and wrong, which prescribe the human characters in terms of rules, rights, benefits to society, fairness, etc. and principles of morality. The word 'ethics' derived from the Greek word 'ethos' means character (Singer, 2019). Different philosophers have classified ethical theories into various categories, namely; virtue (character-based), deontological (duty-based), teleological, and system development ethical theories.

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The study of ethics can be further classified into three major areas namely; metaethics (our understanding when we talk about the right or wrong), normative ethics (the concept of moral judgment, e.g., good or bad) and applied ethics (the action a person is obliged to perform in a particular situation) (Ramey,(2020). Media (singular: medium), is defined as paths through which news, educational, entertainment, or other important messages are relayed to the public. Media includes every broadcasting channels like television, radio, magazines and newspapers, mail, fax, and email. Below is a case study discussing Ethics, media, and worldviews of the same.MEDIA AND ETHICS

Media describes all ways used to communicate in society. Every mode of communication, like news and a simple phone call, are referred to as media. If the same information is intended to reach so many people like the whole world, then we can attribute that to as mass media. At the same time, local media is all channels of communication within a country (Mahmoud, 2020). There are a few types of media like print media that refer to all publications, including newspapers, journals, books, magazines, and reports. Print media has otherwise been so much affected by the invention of the internet as everything is now available freely but still has stood its ground as a significant source of information in the world.

Broadcast media is another type of media referring to all TV and radio stations. These inventions made in the middle of the 20th century and most people still rely on this media for their information. Research otherwise shows that broadcast media is under the threat of extinction due to completion from online sources. The internet is the last type of media. This has gained popularity among society as people are very much active in searching for news and information such as entertainment and education online. This is made possible by the use of websites and blogs where all this information is contained. The internet is considered viable due to its ability to generate profits to its users and business for an extended period.

The Internet and Social Media

The use of the internet was brought up in the early 1960s as in 1995, only 1% of the population online compared to today's 49% of the world population. In the USA, the use of the internet started when military officials and scientists feared that their telephone network was in danger of a missile attack during the Cold War (Gordon, 2000). Stephen Hawking concluded that media needed superheroes just like and another dimension of life. In the past years, the internet has taken a significant step forward due to the invention of social media, which is a collection of all online communication channels where people can share information, interact and collaborate. Examples of the world's most famous social media platforms are Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Instagram. Other applications and websites the deal with microblogging, social bookmarking, wikis, and social networking can also be considered as examples of social media.

As media and communications systems of the world have been closely linked together, it is essential to put into practice the use of ethics and moral codes. The media today is under great use by society as information is continuously shared and messages disseminated. More information is being given out to many audiences around the globe now than before and colliding stories all over the internet about the same stories being widely narrated to different people in the world. Due to this change, a lot of discussion about how ethical values will fit in the current world is always in dispute (Herrscher, 2002).

Today's society hugely relies on infrastructure and governance to determine how individual persons and groups will live within the social system. Humans have continuously put a lot of effort into upgrading and the invention of new technologies and, as a result, have created a medium through which mass information can be gathered and shared. These advancements force the community to come up with agreed-upon norms and rules which govern their way of life due to the influence of media in both the public and private sectors. The adoption of new forms of life every other day raises a significant challenge to the society, and it is through this that the question of decision making and social ethics becomes essential. Codes of ethics are, therefore, relevantly crucial in modern society as a remedy to the challenges posed by the contemporary way of life.

Origin of Ethics

For quite a long time, ethics have been viewed as a branch of philosophy as it embraces practical links of nature to other areas like economics, history, biology, anthropology, theology, and sociology. Ethics remain different from these disciplines as it does not entirely depend on factual knowledge and other principles of the general science and other branches but ethics deals with determining and the application of the accurate knowledge to practical moral challenges and finding the solution to these ethical problems (Peter Singer, 2020). In this case, ethics cover topics such as people's rights and responsibilities, how to live a better life, the aspect of right, and wrong, and moral decisions. The aspect of ethics is derived from philosophies, religions, and cultures.

Ethical principles are classified into; beneficence, least harm, respect for autonomy, and justice. Beneficence is a principle that guides a person in the decision making about what is right and good. The idea of doing good creates an ethical perspective of the situation and gives a possible solution to the dilemma at hand. The principle of utility where a person is encouraged to generate the most significant ratio of doing good over the evil in the world goes hand in hand with the law of beneficence. The idea of least harm makes the decision-maker thing of a solution that will cause the least damage to the fewest number of people.in this case, situations have a solution with choices which appear non-beneficial. For example, a person has a great responsibility to just walk past a fellow individual than to make derogatory comments about them even if they had a bad experience with them in the past.

The principle of respect to autonomy states that decision making should be focused on giving people the chance to be autonomous as in making a decision that applies to their lives. People should, therefore, be able to have control over their lives because it is they who fully understand the reason behind their chosen way of life. This idea is a branch of beneficence as an independent person will significantly prefer to influence each decision they make about their lives and seek the importance and effects of these decisions on their own. Justice, on the other hand, emphasizes on making the decision that is fairer to the participants in a particular situation. There exist four broad categories of ethical theories, namely; Deontology, utilitarianism, rights, and virtues.

The deontology branch of ethical theories states that individuals should adhere to their duties and obligations in decision making whenever ethics are involved. This implies that a person will strictly follow their responsibility and carry out their burden to the community because, at long last, it is carrying out their duties correctly that matters to society. A deontologist will always produce consistent results as their tasks are still driven by the desire to fulfill their responsibilities.

Consequently, the principle of deontology is not 100% efficient as it also contains some flaws. For instance, if a committee member has made it their duty to always attend meetings on time, despite this being a good thing, we might not be in a position to tell why they chose that as their duty. Or instead, if a person is driving to attend a meeting and they predicts that they will run late, how are they supposed to carry out their driving considering that they will break the society law by over speeding and still after upholding the law they will not fulfill their duty of getting to the meeting early.

Utilitarianism ethical theories depend on a person's ability to predict the consequences of a decision. In this case, the decision that is most beneficial to the people in the society is the most ethically correct. There exist two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism dictates that one is supposed to act on the idea that brings more benefits to the most people in the society regardless of their personal views and feelings and other constraints like the law.

Rule utilitarianism depends on legality and fairness in the process of decision making. Both cases have disadvantages as they rely on the ability of a person to compare various aspects of life on the same scale and predict the consequences of an act. For example, in a situation involving material gains and other gains, such as money and happiness, would seem difficult as these qualities differ to a large extent. In act utilitarianism, where the maximum good is vital in making decisions, the rights of a single individual might be not upheld in the name of seeking the greater good for the whole community.

The ethical theories based on rights advocate very much and observe human rights put up by society to the fullest. These rights are considered correct and instrumental as they are an agreement between the people in a community. Some rights may be bestowed on people by others who have the ability to do so. For example, a person may say that his friend may borrow their bike in the evening. The borrowing friend now has the right to that bike in the evening. The major challenge of this theory is that society has to decide on the reasons it gives and upholds its citizens.

Virtual ethical theories judge an individual by their character rather than their actions, which may deviate from their normal behavior. If a person has been caught plagiarizing research by a peer, he/she may be judged by their past moral conduct. If the plagiarizer is a person who follows the school's rules and regulations and has good relations with other students, he/she will be judged leniently, and their mistake can end up being judged as a misunderstanding. If the plagiarizer is otherwise a person with numerous academic misconducts, they will be judged harshly because of their consistent past of unethical behavior. This form of judgment has its disadvantages. For instance, it may raise conflicts in virtues. It doesn't put into consideration a person's ability to change over time, and so one will always be judged from their past mistakes and misconduct.

Philosophers today have described ethics into three significant parts, metaethics, applied ethics, and normative ethics. Metaethics deal with moral judgment, and its nature, looking at the origin and the meaning of ethical principles. Applied ethics looks at topics like war, capital punishment, and other issues which are controversial. Normative ethics deals with the criteria of knowing what's right and wrong and the content of this judgment (Chonko, 2020). The main difference between metaethics and nor...