My ethical background has been influenced by many contributors across the course of my life. Some of these different parties seem to contradict each other, and some work rather well together, but they have all assisted in the development of my solidified moral beliefs. The sources for my ethical inspiration come from many different general areas. Anywhere from peers to parents, and religion to media, somewhere in the middle of all of these messages arose my current ethical stance. Some areas have contributed more than others naturally, but the major contributors for me I think may differ from the norm. However abnormal the development of my ethics has been, I think they have helped me develop into a fully productive, functioning member of society.
When I think of ethics and where people usually go for ethical information and guidance, I think of people relying on their parents as the main source for this type of information in their lives. This only makes sense, relying on those who brought you in to this world and who have raised you and taught you how to walk and talk and give nothing but their best to you in order for you to make it in society, to also rely on these people for guidance in making ethical decisions and receiving aid from them in order to determine right from wrong. My parents have played a large (but not the most important) role in the development of my ethical standing. My parents have built one of the main supporting pieces of my ethical foundation in that they taught me that causing harm to another human is not correct in any case. This may not have been their aim, but it is what I have gathered from their anecdotes and lessons I have collected from them over the course of my life. This remains part of the creed I live by, in that I believe that if one takes care of those around him, then those around him will take care of him in return. To this day this influences daily decisions I make on whether I should pass up the guy asking for money for food, or whether I should offer to help someone with their homework, or if I offer to clean up the dishes or something else in the house even if it is not required of me. I also have found that this way of thinking extends far beyond regular day-to-day decisions. It makes one look at the world in a completely different way. I now look at the world in awe due to the number of people in it, all of which have their own story, desires, needs, and personalities, and all of which may be equally likely to support each other in times of need if I take a second out of my day to help them in whatever way I can.
Certainly my parents developed my code of ethics into the humanitarian state it is in today, but the main contributor to my thinking about the world, and the way I dealt with occurrences I did not know how to handle and the thing that planted the seed for my ability to think about the world is most certainly music. To most, music is simply a pass time, or something to fill a quiet room or dull the piercing awkwardness of a situation, or even in some more developed lovers of music it is a great joy to listen to it and to enjoy it with friends. To me however, music is more than just a form of media, each and every (be it instrumental or otherwise) song has a message and each can supply the listener with important information about the world. Each song can move one emotionally or spiritually or even rationally to act on some idea or another, or inspire one to rethink the world they live in and apply a new set of eyes to his life. My whole-hearted connection with the music I listened to began when I was 12 and 13 years old, when I was branching out from popular songs heard on the radio and really venturing in to the vast world of music. On my search, I found songs that supplied me with advice, with consolation, with new world views, and each song helped me step outside of myself and look at the world I lived in from another set of eyes. The ability to do so is absolutely essential to be a functioning member of society I believe, so this was fundamental in my social development. Music helped me through times of need, and guided me through the uncertain years of high school and beyond. It supplied me with the capacity to consider how my actions might affect the world, and how the most important aspect of my ethical decisions is their impact on other humans. To this day music makes me think about and feel the world around me, and this feeling and thought process varies between every song, allowing me multiple view points, which helps me maintain a well-rounded sense of the world. Music has developed my ability to view the world in multiple ways, has taught me how varied the human race is, how to feel in certain situations, and how to have a spiritual connection to the world, all of which effect my ethical decisions and my moral code. This is why music has played the largest role in shaping my ethical code.
Lately, despite some atheistic beliefs in the past, religion has been influencing my ethical background quite heavily. Not necessarily a certain religion, because all are equally viable, but spirituality in general has acted in shaping my most recent ethical developments. A general sense of human spirituality has become very important in determining the way I categorize actions and ideas in to right and wrong. Spirituality in my case fits nicely in with my previous ethical beliefs that assert that the greatest form of ethical behavior does good to fellow humans. I see spirituality as something that all humans share whether they realize it or not, so this idea becomes central to caring for each other, which I believe most ethical decisions involve some degree of care for another.
Through this scattered and difficult-to-articulate history of my morality, I have developed a sense of human interconnectedness. All the major factors, parents, music, and religion, have taught me something about the interconnectedness of humans, and about the fragility of the human race, which has inspired me to care for it. Therefore, I have deemed actions and ideas that assist in this care for the human race as ethical actions and ideas. My ethical background has lead me to the realm of humanitarianism, and it is there that I contently remain today.
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