What does it mean to be an ethically responsible person and is that something you strive for?

Growing up my in a Christian household, ‘ethics’ has always been explicitly tied to the Bible and the teaching of the Methodist Church. More specifically my mom approaches most problems with a ‘God is Love’ mindset, meaning she is always thinking about how to best love those around her in every situation. My introductory philosophy class at Notre Dame was my first real exposure to other concrete ethical frameworks. From that class I began to form my own personal ethical beliefs:

  1. My Christian faith is still a strong part of who I am; the more I read the Bible the more I am awestruck by the profound truth of Christ’s words.

  2. In particular I’ve come to appreciate my mom’s ‘God is Love’ philosophy. The power of acts performed out of love is truly inspiring, and it is humbling how often I mess this up. As the Apostle Peter writes “above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). From my limited experience, a life of love will always triumph.

  3. In my philosophy class I was quite intrigued by Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics. While his framework may struggle with addressing individual actions, I believe it has great merit in building up one’s character, and provides a solid foundation for thinking about ethical lifestyle choices beyond any single action, where the effects are too far reaching to be helpful to Utilitarianism and too abstract to be useful to non-consequentialist theories like Kantianism or the Rights Approach.

    After some of the comments made in class this week, I applied Aristotle’s idea of virtues to my technical skills. Under this new extended framework not only should I work on becoming the best person I can be, but I should continuously look for opportunities to sharpen my technical abilities.

I am by no means perfect at following through with my beliefs, but I do strongly believe that for me the best ethical framework is a combination of the above points: I want to use my knowledge about God and his steadfast unending love as springboard for building up my character and becoming the best person I can be.

This week’s discussion really brought to light a personal issue I’ve been dealing with for quite a while. While so many people around me seem to have something they’re passionate about, and desire to use computer science to fulfill their passions, I am the opposite: I am passionate about computer science itself, and don’t really have any lofty dreams or ambitions. Some interpretations of the Parable of the Talents would argue this is not a valid use of my skills, especially since next year I will be working at a trading firm whose sole goal in writing software is to make more money for the stakeholders and employees of the company, which is not using software to “help people become the best version of themselves” (Jeff Atwood).

These discussions brought up some troubling questions: Is it ‘unethical’ to choose a job on the basic of pay, even if my intent is to pay off my student debt as quickly as possible? Is it okay to prioritize my own comfort and lifestyle? Does it make me a ‘bad person’ to believe these things are okay? To answer these questions I need to analyze them in light of the set of ethical frameworks I’ve been developing. I believe I can defend my actions as being ethically permissible, because

  1. I am able to develop a virtuous character and hone my technical skills through my job
  2. My career choice does not define who I am, and does not prevent me from living a life of love towards both my coworkers and those outside the workplace.

No matter what I end up doing with my life, it is important to always keep thinking about this question of ethic responsibility. Wrestling with these problems is proof of a healthy conscience, and can prevent ethical issues early before they get out of hand. Through this wrestling I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally to be ethically responsible I need to stick to the ethical values I’ve developed here at Notre Dame by continuing to build my character and skills, and by remembering and sharing Christ’s love with everyone I meet, regardless of my exact job situation.