Ethics Askew: A Case Study Of Ethics In An Educational Environment

Abstract

For a formal definition of ethics, Webster’s New World Dictionary (1995) defines the term as “the study of standards of conduct and moral judgment”. Ethics is important to individuals because we are concerned with what leaders do and who they are—their conduct and character. “Conduct” is a word that implies behavior. Behavior can change under differing circumstances. For instance, in a “low key”, unstressed situation, most individuals tend to be civil and polite; however, the introduction of stress factored into a scenario can totally change the dynamics of the situation, as well as the ability of those involved to “cope”. Stress can cause individuals to become hostile, rebellious, and oftentimes uncompromising. Stress introduced into a situation can also cause individuals to become unethical. For example, take natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 whereby individuals were under tremendous stress of discomfort from not having a clean environment in which to live, as well as conditions of hunger and thirst from lack of food and fresh water. Most of us have witnessed the television footage of the “looting” that occurred from these conditions. Or take the civil unrest that occurred in the streets of Los Angeles after the verdict of 1992 when police officers were acquitted of the beating of an African American named Rodney King. Again, anger and stress caused looting and violence to erupt in the streets. While these are “extreme” situations, the question arises as to how individuals cope with stress in an atmosphere where civility is taught and encouraged. For instance, consider a classroom situation where an assignment to produce an outcome is given with few rules, and the members of the group are from other classes, possibly even in other states. The means of communication for these individuals are e-mail, a relatively new virtual reality website, similar to face book, or telephone should one choose to use that method. This type of situation would most likely exist in a graduate program and in fact, did. This paper is a case study of just that type of situation.