Louise Barnum
Jennie Hensarling
English 101
March 8, 2015
Ethics in American Politics The ideas of ethics in American Politics have long been not only believed by the public but skewed by the individuals in office. It is in this mindset that we question exactly why we put the government in charge so frequently and where the morals have gone. We find that we have duties to ourselves, commitments to others, and obligations to our life as a whole. We find that we are often strung between what may look ugly yet is right and what may seem aesthetically pleasing yet is morally wrong. We are torn apart by our drive to be just and right in each and every situation that we come across (Ciprut, 1).
With this in mind we take into account that while all politicians are taught to believe the same things we are ethically because of school and society, these practices are often shunned by those who actually obtain and maintain office for the stability of the government. We find most often that individual citizens develop attitudes towards politics through learning from their parents and their environment (McKay, 7). These attitudes change through time as political authorities produce particular responses or policies over time as a source of feedback (McKay, 7).
Looking at these facts we can see that, growing all individuals through academia or through environmental stimulation develop a sense of ethical value. As Plato witnessed, people are characterized by their aspirations or their idea of what is good. I am sure that most political parties enter politics with the right reasons in mind and then become corrupted by the system, after all isn’t that the world we live in today? This is answered with the more common modern view that all rational people think the same way when attempting to maximize the satisfaction of their desires but by using different desires (Ciprut, 273).
Sadly the government seems to skew their ethical beliefs simply because of the fact that we as a society place all the control within the government. We believe that they are to ensure law and order, deal with economic failures, provision public goods (when necessary), eliminating poverty (to the extent possible), and redistributing taxation (Little, 9). We also put the government
