A Thousand Shades of Grey.

We don’t live in a world of black and white. We live in a world made up of a thousand different colours and shades. We live in a world where lines blur, and the difference between right and wrong isn’t always as clear cut as it should be. Sometimes knowing what’s right isn’t as straightforward as picking between two options. The reality is that sometimes there are a million different shades of right and wrong to choose between, and the line isn’t always that easy to see.

Ethics play a big part in our lives, and they’re also crucial to the world of journalism. Journalism’s a profession that, thanks at least in part to a certain Mr Murdoch, often receives a lot of flak for being unethical, and for going about things and getting information in the wrong way. In our lecture this week, however, we learnt that journalists can actually be an ethical bunch, and that’s definitely the kind of journalist I want to be.

Being ethical, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Ethics is often about choosing between a bad and a very bad outcome, and different people see different outcomes as more or less ethical. Ethics isn’t black and white, and there are many different approaches. Some believe in deontology, which says that you do the right thing by following the rules. But what about when the rules are wrong? It used to be a rule that black people couldn’t even drink from the same water fountains as white people, let alone go to the same school or earn the same wages. That rule isn’t ethical at all. Following the book doesn’t necessarily make you ethical, as some rules need to be broken.

Others believe in consequentialism, where the ends justify the means. This can be a very dangerous guideline though, as some horrific things have been done throughout history in order to achieve some end. Sometimes the price really does outweigh the reward you get, and often that reward only benefits a certain group of people. And there isn’t anything ethical about making others suffer for the sake of the betterment of a single group.

The last form of ethics theory is virtue. This bases itself on intrinsic values, and the belief that we all have the potential to have good character traits inside of us, and that these will guide us through life. This is a wonderful thing to believe in, but the truth is that some people just don’t listen to that little voice inside their heads. So we can’t really rely on people’s good character to make ethical decisions all the time either.

How do you make an ethical choice then, when no one way of going about it is always correct? Companies make ethics guides, philosophers and thinkers debate about it, but no one has the answer. So perhaps all we can do is trust our instincts, and pick the choice that lies behind one of those thousands of shades of options. No, you won’t always pick the prefect shade. People mess up all the time. But by thinking about other people, and about how our actions will have an impact on them, we might just get a little closer to that golden ethical colour.