`Ethics` by Linda Pastan

ETHICS

Linda Pastan 's poem aptly examines the concept of ethics , being entitled the same . The objective reality of the poem relates the story of the persona , standing in a museum looking at a Rembrandt . Being in such a position , she is reminded of being a child in ethics class presented with the dilemma of choosing which to save between a Rembrandt painting and an old woman in a burning museum . As a child , the persona - caring little for pictures or old age - with the rest of the class would choose one

or the other for a year and the next without really giving any serious thought about the moral problem . The persona admits that sometimes the hypothetical old woman appears to her as her grandmother and perhaps because the woman is not completely a blank face to her that one year she chose to answer the dilemma by not choosing , instead asking to let the woman decide for herself . The persona 's teacher took this as the persona abstaining from making a decision and thus refusing the burden of responsibility that comes with it . The persona is then transposed to the present time , being almost an old woman herself . She then realized that the moral problem posed in her childhood is a question that cannot be answered by children

The poem centers on the idea of ethics , and moves the reader to examine his own concept of ethics . Although it does not specify the persona 's perspective on ethics exactly , it does differentiate between the persona 's old and present attitudes and how these relate to ethics . As a child , the persona did not give much attention to ethical problems , as was instructive of the memory in her ethics class where students half-heartedly answer the moral question . In the first place , it seems that the dilemma presented to the children was not seen as a moral problem

A moral problem is never to be taken lightly - it forces an individual to examine his and her thoughts about one 's own standards of right and wrong , of what is acceptable and what is not , what are the things that he or she values most . Largely , it is this set of moral principles that determine an individual 's attitude . Morality can be said to be the gauge of how right or wrong something is . Conversely , ethics is generally regarded as a code of morality - an individual 's sense of what is right and wrong . Ethics is concerned with morality and its effect on conduct on how people behave based on what they perceive to be right and wrong Indeed , moral principles and ethics are used interchangeably . A code of ethics is thought to be the guide that a person follows in making decisions , in going about through life

In reality , ethics is subjective and personal - nobody can actually force somebody else to practice somebody else 's code of ethics . However living in a society establishes and strengthens a common sense of...