Virtue of Honesty - Assignment Example

Character is a person’s attribute reflecting his values in life. In fact, character is more important than wealth since people respect us for the type of character we exemplify. Ethics is a prescribed norm or set of values that one may use to mold, let’s say – a child’s character. There are many types of ethics: business ethics, political ethics, medical ethics, etc. Business ethics is one type that should be highly practiced nowadays since many businesses are ruined by malpractice.

There are many cases of fraud in the business world today. Enron and WorldCom are notorious examples of how professionals deceive the public so that the truth would not be exposed. Obviously, Enron behaved unethically. According to documents which were filed in a court of New York by the Enron energy company, the top executives of the company enriched themselves greatly in the year 2000. That’s before the bankruptcy of the company in 2001. The consequences of this were, among others, the high levels of job loss by its employees and also their pension savings.

The top executives departed with large amounts of dollars in bonuses and revenues awarded to them by themselves, selfishly. This story was taught in our business class so that we would be ethical professionals in the future. We should emulate the example of the small boy who never took anything that he did not ask for. When we become professionals, we would be able to have access to a lot of money and information. There would be many unguarded moments where we might feel tempted to manipulate things in our favor.

However, if we remember the boy’s story, this would make us feel ashamed because we will remember how dignity is very important for that little boy.