Guadalupe Escalera

Mrs.Carroll

American Literature

27 March 2018

Why to live under these 10 rules.

Ethics is the way of dealing with morals or the principles of morality relating to what one

thinks is right or wrong. Justice is just behavior or treatment which is basically treating everyone

equally. Ethics and Justice are similar because based on one's morals is the way a person makes a

decision to treat people equally or make the right decision that equally affects everyone.

Although my rules on how to be a good person fall in all the frameworks, The Virtue Framework

is what mostly guides my rules.

The first rule has to do with oneself; Do no harm. This rule is to never do harm, whether it’s

physically or mentally hurting someone or harming something. This rule is considered to be in

the Consequentialist Framework because as Brown University states “we focus on the future

effects of the possible courses of action,considering the people who will be directly or indirectly

affected” . Harming someone has consequences, that can be very dangerous depending on the

person. So doing no harm and focusing on the Consequentialist Framework, we will think about

the future effects of the action. This rule obviously does not fall onto the Virtue Framework but it

was guided by The consequentialist Framework; (“Fall in all frameworks”)

Next, I will talk about my second rule that falls onto the Virtue Framework; Don’t lie. This rule

is very important since it’s one of the rules many try to live by. Don’t lie is pretty self

explanatory, but not lying is something we all should do in order to gain a person's trust. If

someone is known as a liar, people won’t associate themselves with them (since no one likes
‘fake people’). This rules goes back to the claim and falls onto the Virtue Framework. Bradley

University states “We are concerned with what kind of person we should be and what our actions

indicate about our character.” If we don’t lie, we are concerned on what people think about us

and don’t want to be known as a liar.

This next rule falls onto the Duty Framework; Be kind. Specifically what this rule means is to

be kind to other people. Saying “please” or “Thank you” are examples of being kind but being

overall a good person towards other people. As Bradley University states “we focus on the duties

and obligations that we have in a given situation,” being kind to a person is an obligation we

have in a situation. Maybe the situation is that someone did you a favor and the right thing to say

is “Thank you” it’s just the obligation that we have. As I stated above, this is not a virtue rule but

it does fall onto another Framework, the Duty.

Many people have a problem with this, and is why I decided to add it; Don’t be envious. This

rule is to basically not want what other have. Being envious can drive people into doing things to

get what they want. It would be better if people would be happy for others instead of being

envious. This rule falls onto, like I stated in my claim of most of them being virtue framework,

the Virtue Framework; “We are concerned with what kind of person we should be and

what our actions indicate about our character.”. We won’t want to be known as envious or as a

‘hater’.

I am trying to work on this rule myself and it’s, Learn to forgive. I order to be a ‘Good person,

I feel like a person should learn to forgive when someone hurts them or as simple as getting hurt.

As Brown University states “Obviously, this framework is useful in situations that ask what sort

of person one should be”. The person we should be if forgiving because some people do things
they might regret, so forgiveness. This rule falls onto, like I stated in my claim of most of them

being virtue framework, the Virtue Framework.

The next rule that I decided on was to Try your best. As a highschool student, I have to

constantly be trying my best on every test I take or on anything if I want to get better and

improve.This could also impact everyone because everyone works and tries their best since they

want to learn and improve their skills. This skill falls onto the Consequentialist Framework

because you’ll focus on the positive outcome, and in this case, if you try your best you will

eventually maybe get better at something of take something positive out of trying hard. As I

stated above, this is not a virtue rule but it does fall onto another Framework, the

Consequentialist.

The next rule that I decided to use was to Listen and give advice and I decided to group this

rule to #9, be patient. Being a friend of someone, you constantly have to be there for them and

listen to any problems they are having and giving them advice on how they can possibly solve

them. You also need to be patient, they are having this problem for a reason, you won’t be able

to solve all those problems in a day, be patient it will take time. Both of these rules fall onto the

Virtue Framework, because you are considering what kind of person you are, and in this case

you want people to see you as a patient good listener that gives advice and they fell like they can

trust you. These two rules were guided by the Virtue Framework.

The next rule is not wishing bad upon anyone. If you start wishing bad upon people that

maybe you might not like, your mind will be filled with negative thoughts. When something

might not go your way because of someone, you might wish bad upon them and one might

actually do what they were thinking, which would make a person very negative and filled with

all kind of bad thoughts.This rule once again is guided by the Virtue Framework because one
might not want to be known as a negative or hateful person and many don’t like to surround

themselves with those kids of people.

And last but not least, rule number 10; Treat others like they treat you. Okay so If someone

really hates you and talks crap about you to others, you’re not gonna respect them or act nicely

towards them because obviously they won’t either. I can’t stress this enough. If someone is nice

to you and respects you, you need to treat them the same because we are all equal right?. This

last rule as my claim states, is guided by the Duty framework, it’s just our duty to treat others

with the same respect or hate they do to you.

The way this set of rules was created was basically the way I see myself, and things that I try

to improve on to make me feel like a ‘good’ person. I personally treat people like they treat me, I

won’t love a person who hates me. I consider myself a good listener and try to give advice. I am

really trying to work on forgiving others, It’s always been a problem of mines and I really want

to work on it since I would want people to forgive me. I did have a few mistakes when making

these rules. I had two similar rules which were to Work hard and try your best. They were very

similar so I decided to change the “work hard” to learn to forgive. Also, I had a rule that was not

ethical which was to be happy, I obviously had to change it because being happy doesn’t make

you a “good person’ on other people's eyes.

Finally, If I lived under these 10 rules, I would be a pretty good person. I would have a lot of

friends because if I knew that a person was following these rules and living under these, I would

like to associate myself with them because they would be a harmless, kind, honest ,respectful

patient person, which is what I strive to one day being. The world would be less dangerous and

happier. Everyone would be honest, which is good to some extent. People won’t do harm making
this world less dangerous, less murder, less sadness. I wish the world did live under these rules

so it would be more tolerable to live in.