You are a new employee at a new job. It is hard for you to make friends, but finally you do. You get to know these friends and even go over to their homes after hours. Then one day they are going to be late for work. They ask you to punch their time cards, and they will stay late to make up the time. You comply with the request. Then sometime later they ask you to do the same thing again. You ask yourself what do you do? You do not want to create an issue by not doing it, as that will cause hard feelings, yet if you do report it you could lose your job because you did do it once. How do you resolve the situation.
Quite often I have asked myself and been asked, “how do you determine ethics?” Philosophers have debated this for centuries. This is not a new subject, although the complexity of our world view today sheds a much different light on the subject. In the postmodern world their are three questions that are asked to determine ethics. Was it legal? Was it fair? How do you feel? The problem with this is the subjectivity involved when asking these three questions. It allows for the view point to shift, like the wind, because of changes in society’s perspective. In other words, it is inconsistent from time to time.
Ethics must be measured from a standard that is never changing, an absolute truth. When using this standard, the emotional part must be removed. Right and wrong cannot be determined by emotions; these change with each situation. When using the absolute truth, you are consistent and fair, yet looking through emotion it is hard to “buy it”. The Decalogue is a great starting point, but then we try to interpret it to shallow. The problem is it is too hard for most to accept the fact that we by nature are sinful and prone to do what is wrong; then justify it through emotion. What we need to do is live our convictions, do not compromise. But this means we could stand alone. That is extremely hard. Our character is determined not by what we do when others are around, but when no one is around. My mother use to tell me, never put yourself in a position to say no. Once you make the choice to say yes, it becomes easier and easier.
The question in this situation is not what you would do if a “friend” or fellow employee would ask you to do this; it should be, what did you ever do to make someone think you would ever consider doing it.