Define And Discuss The Term Ethics From Your Own Perspective Coursework

Define And Discuss The Term Ethics From Your Own Perspective - Coursework Example al., 2012, p. 3). Acceptable behaviour is usually dictated by laws and religious norms. General perceptions are that persons who are ethical will usually conduct themselves according to norms dictating what is good and what is right and persons who are not ethical will act in ways that are not good and inherently evil. However, ethics is not merely concerned with acting in appropriate ways, but also concerned with omitting to act in ways that enable wrongdoing or is complicit in wrongdoing (Braswell, et. al., 2012). It would therefore appear that ethics not only demand that ethical individuals act in ethical or good ways, but that they also police unethical behavior. Whether or not this is realistic or fair, does not appear to be a concern. It does appear to be lofty goal for individuals to follow. However, when looked at within the parameters and operations of the criminal justice system the definition of ethics as a tool for moral responsibility and accountability makes sense. As Pollock (1993) informs, ethics in criminal justice studies ensures that those involved in the criminal justice system are able to identify â€Å"ethical issues†, gain empathy with others regardless of where they stand on an issue, and to â€Å"evaluate alternatives to dilemmas using ethical rather than legal or egotistic criteria† (Pollock, 1993, p. 377). Ethics permits all parts of the criminal justice system to be understood and supported as key components of the necessary machinery for engendering social order and social control in a free and open society. Ethics helps criminal justice actors to understand how all parts of the criminal justice system fit together in ordering of society (Pollock, 1993). Ethics in this regard is also important for individuals who make up parts of the social order and the social system. The individual’s ethics education begins at home and is branched out into the community in which we come into contact with others. Thus what we learn at home is inevitably taken into the larger community. Thus when both family and community values are ethical, crime and justice is not only understood but minimized via a collective sense of right and wrong and fairness and justice (Braswell, et. al, 2012). In this regard, ethics is directly connected to criminal behaviour and appropriate responses to criminal behavior. 2. Explain and Discuss Kant's categorical imperative. How appropriate are his views in today's criminal justice field? Kant was of the opinion that consequential theories in evaluating and explaining ethics did not pay enough attention to the issue of duty. Kant also took the position that these theories did not pay sufficient attention to the question of â€Å"basic morality† or â€Å"good will† or the intention to do good† (Braswell, et. al., 2012, p. 16). Thus Kant developed what is referred to as the categorical imperative which is contrasted with the â€Å"hypothetical imperativeâ €  (Braswell, et. al., 2012, p. 17). Hypothetical imperatives make allowances for a â€Å"command that begin with ‘if’† (Braswell, 2012, p. 17). For instance, a hypothetical imperative might function in the sense that an individual may decide that if he wanted to obtain a satisfactory academic outcome, the individual should be more academically prepared. Categorical imperatives are not hypothetical and therefore not prefaced by ‘ifs† (Braswell, 2012, p. 17). Kant formulated a number of aspects of categorical imperative. Two of those formulations are the universalizability