Raymond P. Wilson

An Ethics Comparison Between the Military and Business Professional: Does Society Hold the Military Professional to a Higher Standard? Raymond P. Wilson

Every individual possesses a morality compass. A morality compass is an individual's "inner voice" that provides guidance whenever an ethical dilemma presents itself. I firmly believe that an individual's morality compass is calibrated through innate knowledge, personal experiences, personal values, and organizational affiliations. In this research paper, I will focus on the organizational affiliation aspect. Society employs a set of ethical standards that it expects all individuals to follow. The question that this paper attempts to address is whether or not society's baseline standard is equally applied to all elements of society, or does society single out certain groups and hold those groups to a higher ethical standard. In an effort to present sound background information on the military's standard of ethics, I have reviewed the work of numerous authors in the area of military ethics. I have performed the same actions to gain knowledge of standard business ethics and standard society ethics.