“Are You Ethical?”

So what makes a person ethical, or unethical?  History and present day stories, movies and even children’s cartoons have blurred our interpretation of what is ethical.
We’ve all heard of Robin Hood and his band of merry men.  He and his men created havoc with all their looting and stealing of the state’s money.  Robin Hood would steal from the rich and unselfishly give it to the poor.  On its face, it seems like a noble deed.  He would take the state’s tax money, and give it to the poor people.  So, Robin Hood would steal money, we all know stealing is wrong, and universally accepted as unethical behavior.
But Robin Hood was looked upon as a great man and savior, he was always portrayed as the man in white, who looked out for the poor and indigent. Everybody loved Robin Hood.  But was Robin Hood an ethical person?  Although the money he stole, would be given to the poor, surely that makes him a good man.  But I think the Sheriff of Nottingham would have a different view.  I’m sure he wouldn’t refer to Robin Hood as an ethical person.  If anyone stole your money, how could you think of them as anything but a thief who belongs in jail?  Robin Hood ethical?  Not a chance. But the poor people of Nottingham thought he was anything but a bad person, he gave them money they needed to eek out a living, even if he had to steal it.  He stole it from a rich person, do does that justify the stealing? So they thought he was a good, ethical person.  Does the good balance out the bad?
So here we have one situation, with two different views of ethics.  Either Robin Hood was ethical, or he was unethical.  You can be ethical in one instance, and unethical in another, but you can’t be ethical and unethical, in the same situation.

Who is more beloved in our country than Abraham Lincoln?  He is considered by many to be the greatest president of all time, and naturally it goes without saying,  a great and ethical man.  He was so honest and upright, they called him “Honest Abe’.  History tells us he walked miles to return one cent, one penny, to a woman who was overcharged at a store where he worked.  So if anyone could be considered ethical, it would be Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln was known as the man who won the Civil War for the north, and saved our country.  But he is best known as the man who freed the slaves.  He was ethically opposed to slavery, and spoke against it constantly.  In 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, for which he is famous.  That document freed the slaves.  What a great person, to exercise his ethical morality and abolish slavery in America.  But did Lincoln act wholly in an ethical manner by freeing the slaves, or was he motivated by other factors?

The words in the Emancipation Proclamation said:

“all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free” but exempted border states and those areas of slave states already under Union control.

So Lincoln did NOT free ALL slaves, only those that lived in states that were in rebellion against the Union.  What about the slaves that were in the North, or all the slaves that lived in States that were not part of the rebellion? They were not freed, and were not included in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  So was there an ulterior purpose, not an ethical purpose, for freeing only the slaves living in rebellious states?

Lincoln commented about this by saying: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union, without freeing any slaves I would do it, and what I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union”.    

So is Lincoln’s historic gesture of freeing the slaves an ethical gesture, or is it based on a selfish motive, in order to accomplish a separate, unrelated issue?  If so, was his proclamation unethical, since he only freed some of the slaves for his own political reason, and he kept all others bound in slavery?

How could a well educated religious person, an icon, a saint in the eyes of the Church, persecute and kill other men?  That is exactly what this person did.  He is now held in high esteem by the Catholic Church and is in fact, one of its greatest saints.  Not only were his actions totally unethical, but also totally criminal by today’s standards.

This person known Paul the Apostle (at that time known as Saul) was a zealous Pharisee who “intensely persecuted” the followers of Jesus.  Some scholars argue that Paul was a member of the “Zealot” party.  In the Bible Paul said:

“For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:  And profited in the Jews religion above may my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers’.

Paul was an exceedingly religious man in his own beliefs, and thought that the new Jewish religion was plain heresy.  As a result, he took it upon himself to obliterate and destroy the religion of the Christian Jews.
But soon he was converted to Christianity through an intervention by God (I am not preaching religion, I mention it to make a point).  Now Paul spreads the word of Jesus Christ, and is even killed for his new beliefs.

So what do we think of Paul now?  What about all the people he killed and “zealously” persecuted, is everything and everyone OK with that now? After all, he is now admitting his wrongs, and living and spreading the word of Jesus Christ.  Naturally, what he did was wrong, for any moral and ethical human being Paul disobeyed all laws in his desire to obliterate the new Christian religion.

In the minds of all ,moral and ethical people, Paul should have been put to death.  He in fact, was martyred by individuals from his old faith.

Remember my definition of ethics:

“An individual’s personal choice, whereby and individual elects to live a life beneficial, or detrimental to mankind”.

Where Robin Hood’s choices of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, beneficial or detrimental to mankind?

Where Abraham Lincoln’s choices of freeing only the slaves living in states that were in rebellion to the United States, beneficial or detrimental to mankind?

Where Paul’s choices of attempting to destroy the followers of Jesus, and then converting to Christianity beneficial or detrimental to mankind