Alexander Goodman’s Updates
assignment 1
There are a few different times in particular that come to mind when I definitely questioned the ethics and morality of what I was doing. I really try and stay away from positions and situations where I might need to make a really tricky decision about something and just the fact that I have questioned the situation already raises a red flag in my head. I think one of those moments shines through when I was the Vice President and captain of my ultimate Frisbee team. I had to work with teammates that did not believe following school protocol and were very lenient about following rules. The main issue was with filing paperwork for tournaments which was a really important piece of safety as well as notification for the care of other members of the team. I felt a moral obligation to speak up but since we were in a rush to finish everything I did not say anything. I felt it was unethical to not put in the extra effort and correctly fill out paperwork as well as put other people at risk and misrepresent the club as a whole. I realized this was a mistake and I brought it up at the next meeting because I wanted to address the issue as a serious matter and have my colleagues understand that we are responsible for the rest of our team as leaders. I helped them understand my perspective but it did not change their moral or ethical compass. They slid back into doing things the way they had done in the past and it made me realize that it is very hard to hold others to the same moral and ethical standard that you hold yourself to. IF I wanted to fulfill my obligation to the team I would have to go out of my way to do other people’s responsibilities. At the end of the day this just does not make sense. It would not be fair to push my viewpoint onto others when they clearly don’t understand or accept it. The Majority of the 5 leaders were on a different level of ethical and moral understanding than I was which led to the situation I was in. I think the best thing I could have done is tried to understand why they put themselves in that situation and risked the well being of our club and of other members of our team.
Alexander Goodman
Its useful to try and understand why people around you are coming to the conclusions that they're arriving at, but I wouldnt say dipping down to someone elses moral level is a moral act in itself. You were doing the right thing and you met opposition while doing it. The sad truth is that this happens all the time