Question

It is often stated that ethics tend to be "reactive instead of proactive". What does this statement mean? Can a professional be ethical but be considered unprofessional? How? In what ways do ethics and personal values relate to one another? Be specific to you intended profession.

Answer 1

Ethics are moral value or principles which individual follows based on what he/she has been taught. Based on the ethics learned by individual its actions are dependent. Hence ethics tends to be reactive. If individual do something which is not as per his/her own ethics then it will not be termed as reactive.It will be more termed as behavior and behavior can be proactive.

Yes, professional can be ethical but still can be considered as unprofessional. For example, teacher can be ethical in terms of teaching students by giving full commitment towards students in teaching, daily attending school so that students education is not missed and impacted or not allowing students to cheat in exams.. However same teacher can be unprofessional in terms of not coming to school on time or not attending school assemble or not following school dress code.

Ethics are personal moral value hence are related to each other. In the above mentioned example itself not taking any leaves so that students education is not impacted and missed itself shows that teachers personal moral value which he follows and by using such practice in his/her work it is making ethical as well.