Continuing Academic Success WEEK 5 Essay
Ethical Lens Inventory
Your preferred lens is:
None - Periscope or Paralysis?
You see the gifts and the weaknesses of each lens and are able to move fluidly among them to adapt the right tools to each situation to assure the best outcome. You use your reasoning skills (rationality) to determine your duties (autonomy), as well as the universal rules and the systems that will assure fairness and justice for everyone (equality). You also listen to your intuition (sensibility) to determine the greatest good for each individual (autonomy), as well as the virtues that will best serve the community (equality).
You have either a mature ability to use the right tools in a given situation or a paralyzed belief that everyone has a valid point. Although each of has a preferred lens, some who are ethically mature and able to use the tools of all the lenses, adapting them as appropriate in a given situation, test in the center of the grid. Others who test in the center of the grid actually have underdeveloped ethical skills. Those without skills tend to be paralyzed by their ability to see all sides and too desperate to please everyone.
Your Core Values: Autonomy, Equality, Rationality and Sensibility
You value autonomy and equality equally. You see how protecting individual rights and the well-being of the community work together and check excesses in order to achieve the best outcome.
You value rationality and sensibility equally. You believe although there are universal principles, each situation is unique and not all exceptions can be categorized. For you the best solution is both consistent and flexible.
Your Classical Virtues: Temperance, Prudence, Justice and Fortitude
Depending on what the circumstances require, you are able to manifest all four classic virtues. You value individual balance and restraint in the desire for pleasure as you seek to satisfy your duties. You demonstrate wisdom in practical matters and foresight as you act with enlightened self-interest in a particular situation. You deal consistently with members of the community, assuring that all are connected. You also demonstrate steadiness in the face of obstacles and are able to chart untested courses without being rash.
Your Key Phrase: “I make ethical choices for myself and others.”
Because you are able to see yourself and others clearly, you do not make assumptions about why people act the way they do. You also do not make assumptions about how things should be done, although you operate from a clear set of values that you have articulated to yourself. When core values conflict, you look for a way to harmonize them and help others to do so as well.
Determining What Is Ethical: Doing the Right Thing
You define an ethical person as one who does the right thing. You hold this high standard for yourself, but do not judge others who fall short, so long as their intentions were honorable. In some cases, doing the right thing means harmonizing the tools of all four lenses. In other cases, doing the right thing comes from using the tools of the lens best suited to solving a particular problem.
Analytical Tool: Reason, Experience, Authority and Tradition
You are comfortable using all available tools to analyze a problem. These include critical thinking skills, reference to experts, your own past experience and the traditions of the community. As you are gathering information and imagining possible solutions, you are making sure you can fulfill your duties; you have considered the needs of the stakeholders; you have developed a consistent process, if possible; and you have made sure that the character traits highlighted are beneficial for the community.
Your Gift: Balance
Your gift to the community is balance among all four lenses. Because you can see the benefits of each of the lenses, you can use the tools of all of them. At your best, you are make decisions based on the best of all four gifts: self-knowledge, free will, justice and compassion. You are also able to make decisions that foster interdependence and are both consistent as well as adaptable.
Your Blind Spot: None
The mature expression of this position has no blind spot. You are able to see both the strengths and the weaknesses of each lens and to harmonize the four core values of autonomy, equality, rationality and sensibility. Discernment comes with ethical maturity and provides direction in specific situations.
Your Risk: Inaction
Unless you are self-aware, you run the risk of seeing everything and deciding nothing. Even those who are ethically mature in general sometimes lack the courage of their convictions and avoid taking effective action. As one who sees the legitimacy of everyone’s point of view, you are particularly prone to delay or outright inaction.
Your Double Standard: Superiority
If you are not paying attention, you can be tempted to become the expert in all matters ethical. Believing that your balanced vantage point gives you a superior ability to resolve ethical dilemmas, you may convince yourself that you’ve got all the answers and don’t need any input from others.
Your Vice: Insistence on Agreement
Without self-awareness, you sometimes insist that everyone agree before implementing a solution. By insisting that everyone validate all points of view as you do before moving forward, you become tyrannical and may actually provoke dissenters into sabotaging the process as the only way they feel they can maintain the integrity of their different viewpoint.
Your Crisis: Confusion
Unless you develop the practice of mindfulness and reflection, at some point you will become confused and find that you have lost your moral compass. The downside of being able to see everyone else’s perspective is that you can lose track of your own. Taking a clear stand, based on your own evaluation is ok. If you have few friends, it could be because people don’t trust your “neutral” position as authentic.
Your Seeing Clearly: Listen to your heart; use your head; act with confidence
To see more clearly, first consider the nature of the problem. Then use both your head and your heart to discern which course of action will best manifest interdependence. Once you have assessed the ramifications of the various options, act with confidence and courage. Remember that although there may be more than one way to resolve a problem, some actually are better than others.
