Universal or Core Ethical Values
Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship ? are six core ethical values.
Using core ethical values as the basis for ethical thinking can help detect situations where we focus so hard on upholding one value that we sacrifice another ? eg we are loyal to friends and so do not always tell the truth about their actions.
1. TRUSTWORTHINESS
Trustworthiness concerns a variety of behavioral qualities ? honesty, integrity, reliability and loyalty.
Honesty
There is no more fundamental ethical value than honesty. We associate honesty with people of honour, and we admire and trust those who are honest.
Honesty in communications is about intent to convey the truth as best we know it and to avoid communicating in a way likely to mislead or deceive.
There are three dimensions:
Truthfulness ? truthfulness means not intentionally misrepresenting a fact (lying). Intent is the crucial distinction between truthfulness and truth itself. Being wrong is not the same thing as being a liar, although honest mistakes can still damage trust.
Sincerity/non-deception ? a sincere person does not act, say half-truths, or stay silent with the intention of creating beliefs or leaving impressions that are untrue or misleading.
Frankness ? In relationships involving trust, honesty may also require us to volunteer information that another person needs to know.
Honesty in conduct prohibits stealing, cheating, fraud, and trickery. Cheating is not only dishonest but takes advantage of those who are not cheating. It's a violation of trust and fairness.
Not all lies are unethical, even though all lies are dishonest. Occasionally dishonesty is ethically justifiable, such as when the police ...