When Does Ethics Become Global?

Delving into understanding ethics

         Global ethics can be defined as “an area of critical ethical enquiry into the nature and justification of values and norms that are global in kind and into the various issues that arise …” (Dower, 2009). This area of critical ethical enquiry extends “beyond personal relationships or local settings and across national and political borders and boundaries” (The Open University, 2020 (a)). Thus, global ethics was born in the world of globalization where companies, governments, agencies, etc. interact among themselves affecting -positively or negatively- entire nations, whole communities, ethnic groups, or simply the entire world. Ethics becomes global when its impact scale affects a great number of people.

         Based on Prof. Heather Widdows, University of Birmingham, “Global Ethics is the ethics of a globalised world” (The Open University, 2020 (b)). It can be stated that this type of moral philosophy inquiry aims at making all international stakeholders aware of fair and ethical practices, so all societies can create a more just world for everyone. It has become global because it is not circumscribed to a single national jurisdiction but many at the same time harming many individuals in various countries, communities, and so on. As it has also been stated by Prof. Widdows (The Open University, 2020 (b)), “we are facing global challenges that cannot be addressed within one nation-state, within one jurisdiction, within one belief system, within one discipline;” these challenges have to be taken care by all interested parties involved in them in search for a just world.

         Then, what are global ethical issues like? Any kind of trouble whose impact is at a global scale is subject of analysis by moral philosophy. Among this kind of ethical problems, the following can be mentioned:

The list and explanation of other global issues can go on and on. Yet any single ethical thought can have a great and lasting effect on people who are being affected because of an “immoral” conduct of a company, government, and the like.

         To sum up, global ethics is “a mixture of justice, basic rights, and fair distribution,” as it is stated by Prof. Widdows (The Open University, 2020 (b)). Due to our globalized world, there may be a series of loathly practices that must be stopped such as sweatshops in Latin American and Asian countries where multi-million dollar companies pay very low wages to employees who also find themselves working in tiny spaces with no ventilation and for very long hours. The pinnacle of success of our civilizations cannot be measured in terms of technological advances and pricy goods that are produced every year, but on how these advancements and products are made available for all social strata in a country. This sharing of resources and good will should be the forte of all societies on the planet.

References

Dower, N. (2009). Global Ethics. (R. C. Elliot, Ed.) Institutional Issues Involving Ethics and Justice, Vol. 1, 232-251.

The Open University. (2020 (a)). Global Ethics. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from FurureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905594

The Open University. (2020 (b)). Global Ethics, All in it Together. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905595

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Reflecting Upon Ethics: What is it?

Ethical Judgments

         “Ethics is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits for society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, & Meyer, 2010). By gathering one’s thoughts after reading this definition of ethics, one can conclude that it is about how people should live righteously in search of happiness. Hence, ethics then manifests itself in our lives as moral judgments regarding all human endeavors.

         “Plausible ethical judgements are made through a process of moral reasoning and in terms of things we value” (The Open University, 2020). Feeling the lure of temptation by trying to frame the moral judgments’ lore, it can be roughly stated that people phrase their ethical assessments in terms of what they look for or what it is expected from their actions. In the end, ethics is “what people should or should not make happen, what people should and shouldn’t do, and why” (The Open University, 2020). And based on these ideas of making happen and doing, humans phrase their understanding of moral judgments.

         Not trying to upend the order of moral judgments, many of people’s ethical judgments are phrased in terms of what they look for. As it can be observed without having to brood over for a lengthy moment, that the list below specifies many of the things one looks for in life. “Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, & Meyer, 2010). Ethics is a fearsome way of living in a world where bloodlust is every and anywhere; yet it is what it is expected from others to collective attain society’s best interests, one’s happiness, fairness among peers, safety for oneself and people in one’s inner circle, and rights.

         As people delve deeper into understanding ethical assessments, it is necessary to take note of the feelings brimming inside oneself when talking about responsibilities, duties, rights, consequences, decency, morality, and virtue. These are not things people are exactly looking for in their lives’ ethics, but these are moral constructs linked to ethical actions that are expected from fellow people. Ethics is also “the study and development of one’s ethical standards” (Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, & Meyer, 2010), which are encased within all these types of actions in a person’s life.

 One does not have to be out of one’s wits to comprehend that humanity is ruled by ethics. This is not about thinking that the gods rule from on high, and they are the ones who instruct humans to act morally in the eyes of their fellow people. As stated by Aristotle (2016), “every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to aim at some good; hence the good has been well described as that at which everything aims.” Humans are ruled by reason, and reason should be governed by morality aiming at goodness.

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Improving Efforts to Reach a Wider Audience

Suggestions and Questions

         All types of cultural institutions do look for ways to improve their efforts to rich a wider audience with their brands or campaigns. Many just send out messages expecting that someone out there will react to them. What company directors sometime forget is what it is that they plan to forfeit to gain meaningful presence in social media. Prof. Jonathon Hutchinson (The University of Sydney, 2020), discussing this type of improvement in organizations’ efforts, mentions that “certain messages will work more efficiently with different types of audiences at particular times in the day.” However, before we can generate meaning from social media data analytics to determine the impact of a social media campaign, how can brand awareness be produced? Based on what is explained by Prof. Hutchinson, a series of questions need to be asked and put out to ensure success.

         The following infographic identifies the four different areas pointed out by Prof. Hutchinson (The University of Sydney, 2020). Some of his questions have been slightly modified to make them more generic and that can be applied to any brand that needs to be promoted in social media. This kind of inquiry included in the infographic can help organizations to discover the wondrous hoard hidden behind data that can be retrieved from social media channels.

         Right here what is presented is not a pesky questionnaire for community managers but a sample contextualization of these generic questions on a cultural institution’s new brand product to promote English language learning beyond the classroom and through social media. However, none of the questions have been answered and are just a nice collection of ideas to explore to guarantee success in institutional efforts to reach a wider audience of learners. Not paying attention to these areas specified by Prof. Hutchinson will make organizations stay stuck in their comfort cocoon and their improvement efforts will fade away in the directors’ eyes in sore dismay.

Informed Sense of Beginning

Monitoring a Campaign

Analysis and Visualization

Organic Conversations

         Organizations should not cease plying their social media channels. Companies have to hover around these four areas of media analytics to create healthier and truthful conversations with learners. Neither the institution’s directors nor their marketing staff have a belt of prowess to identify the success of a brand campaign; all efforts for improvement can be swept down by the lack of student interest. To dispel the darkness around brand failures is not linked to be insusceptible to criticism; it is connected to identify the “quernstone” that can help the organization grind the different individual who are part of its audience comprehend these people to take them into its conversations.

References

The University of Sydney. (2020). How do we generate meaning from social media data analystics? Retrieved Octubre 14, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-media/1/steps/824164

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Professional Growth and Development in Education

Some considerations

         As members of an education institution, it is important to endorse the idea that organizations must be created around the belief that every single individual wants to grow professionally. Educators cannot live nor prosper in a teaching system where mediocracy is rewarded; as pointed out by Laura Lewin, mediocracy in teaching cannot and must not exist (2020). Teachers have to hold on strong desires to continue to grow as a professional; otherwise, they will get stagnated and with no sense of achievement in their field and careers. Part of being a top pedagogue is to grow professionally and keep oneself updated (Lewin, 2020).

Taken from Simply Psychology at https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html 

         Being a professional does not equal with being a good educator. Institutions need to select and hire people who are willing to continue to grow in their profession and beyond. Based on Lewin (2020), organizations need to encourage their teachers to take responsibility for their own professional growth and well-being. Seasoned, consolidated professionals are no longer just driven by money to satisfy their basic needs; they now aspire for their place in the field. If these professionals have already crossed the borderline between basic necessities and psychological essentialities in the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as posited by Lewin (2020), educators’ motivation is no longer bound to money; they look for a sense of belonging to a group of other professionals and colleagues in the same field and a sense of accomplishment at a personal and professional level in their teaching careers.

         Institutions crave for teachers in the self-fulfillment needs phase. McLeod (2020) states that people in this level are in the search for “achieving [their] full potential, including creative activities.” These individuals are now beyond the exchange of information that takes place in training sessions; these people are ready to get training, implement the new knowledge in the classroom, and then evaluate the results of the implementation (Lewin 2020). For good, committed educators, it is not enough to know about what they teach; for Lewin (2020) these professionals promote social and emotional intelligence among their learners, feel comfortable with new teaching methods, and are up-to-date with technological advancements in and for education. With this type of educators, a sense of purpose and movement from potential to materialization of training in the classroom is sensed and can be measured in the classroom. And if these people who are being trained eventually leave the company is not the problem; the problem is those who stay in the institution with no desire for training and growth (Lewin 2020).

         Training teachers on a given area does not guarantee that they have learned how to implement new information (from a training session) and then evaluate the results of an implementation in their teaching. A professional training program in an institution needs to aim at providing instructors with new knowledge; then this new input is transformed into skills that can improve their teaching process. Finally, institutions want these skills in teachers to turn into competencies that can be later on seen all across their teaching and in their student learning. But most importantly, as stated by Lewin (2020), none of this would work if educators have the wrong attitude towards professional development. Just because you train them does not mean teachers will learn how to apply new knowledge within a learning setting.

References

Lewin, L. (2020, Octubre 2020). Cómo Armar un Programa de Desarrollo Profesional. Escuela para Directivos - Laureate Languages. Buenos Aires, Argentina: ABS International.

McLeod, S. (2020, March 20). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved October 7, 2020, from SimplyPsychology.Org: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

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