Acting Against Personal Belief to Comply With Other’s Expectations Essay

It is impossible to find a situation in which the individual is not faced with having to act according to the expectations of others. Children react to the expectations of their parents, students must respond to the expectations of fellow students and teachers, employees are guided by the expectations of the employer, and coming full circle, parents feel the expectations of their children. The individual’s moral response to acting in accordance with other’s expectations is very situational. In some circumstances the response is minor. An adolescent may firmly believe good grades are pointless, yet comply with the expectations of parents and teachers. In some cases the response may be much greater. An otherwise honest college student may feel a great deal of remorse when he or she gives in to the demands of a â€Å"significant other† or fraternity to â€Å"share† answers on a take-home exam. The worst-case scenario is the life or death situation. A true pacifist draftee must make the decision to kill someone as the expectations of his fellow soldiers are to obviously protect them from injury or death. Fortunately I have not had to face this sort of dire quandary. The qualifying question is whether the expectation of others goes to what they think is best for me or what is best for the group. Presuming that others honestly have my best interest in mind, I would certainly give weight to their thoughts. This is particularly important when their wisdom and knowledge of a situation is greater than mine. My â€Å"moral compass† has developed from the examples of my family and greater environment, and I alone will have the satisfaction or shame in either living up to or abandoning my beliefs. This was not always easy. I remember breaking a neighbor’s garage window playing ball. I could have run with the other kids, but I told him what had happened because I knew from my parents that it was the right thing to do, an ideal to live up to, and short of endangering the lives of others, I would never give up my ideals. The idea of giving up my ideals is repugnant. I live by my principals and I respect others ideals and principals. Similarly I cannot force my beliefs on anyone, although someone may learn from my example as I have learned from others. I do not believe in bending my ideals to make others happy, besides I could not live with my conscience knowing that I gave up what I believe in to make someone else or an institution happy. Honesty and morality is really all one has; once one compromises up their beliefs and ideals, one loses his sense of self. Perfection is something few, if any of us will ever achieve. At some point in our lives we may succumb to temptation or other factors and temporarily place our sense of morality â€Å"on the shelf†. For instance I may firmly believe in doing the best job possible yet be forced to cut corners by an employer who is under pressure to make a production deadline. I do not have the luxury of quitting and finding another job, and in truth my work is of adequate quality as opposed to the excellent quality I want to produce. My work output will affect the entire company. If I hold up production to meet what I believe is a â€Å"better† standard of quality other workers will suffer the consequences of my decision and make less money because of the slowdown. Similarly, I may have family and teachers who expect me to maintain an excellent GPA. Instead, I find it more important to work to defray the costs of tuition and thus have time to only produce a â€Å"C+† average. In this situation I am the only one affected by my decision. Ethical decisions are not made in a vacuum. In the first example I may have â€Å"compromised† my strong belief in producing quality, and act according to others’ expectations but I can live with it because my actions affect others and my compromise did no harm. In the second situation I cannot live to others expectations particularly when my actions have no effect on them. In either situation the beliefs may differ; what will be important will be my response. Ultimately I must make my decisions based on the effect upon my sense of self as well as what I believe to be the common welfare.