Ethics: cultural versus personal

The next part – revealing the inter-relation of ethics and national culture in perceptions of respondents – is the cornerstone of the research. It provides the most though-provoking knowledge and generates the majority of the suggestions for the further exploration.

Responding to the questions with regards to cultural influence on the ethics, respondents showed the trend to deprioritize the national culture’s impact on the understanding of ethics and distinguishing between ethical and unethical behavior. The vital element, which was emphasized by all of the respondents, was the element of personality that according to the respondents dominated all of the other factors that can contribute to value system formation of the individuals.

“I do not think so. I think sit is more like person by person rather than the culture difference. And I would say no, because I can't come up with any examples.” (Respondent Martin)

“I believe that there are some common norms and rules. Right. Like some human rules, I would say”. (Respondent Aleks)

“The question is very interesting because you can see the situation from various sides, but mainly I would say so. I would say that the ethics of people is actually influenced by the culture. Because people have different backgrounds, they have ambitions; they are surrounded by different people, right? Basically, it is more about family sometimes, what have you learned?

What have you experienced in your life? And based on these having your values, principles and understanding, how to behave towards people, like what is right, what is wrong.” (Respondent Žaneta)

However, it might be claimed that in case of substantial differences in national culture and environment of the countries, the ethics can be perceived very differently, especially nowadays when people are influenced by significantly more sources of information than previously. Also, the element of the relevance of the ethical matter was mentioned to justify the differences in ethics perception.

“Yes. Yes, of course. So, you know, in the US, for example, there is a big, big racism problem. Right? In the modern world, there is this Black Lives Matter movement. A lot of people support this movement. People in my company, people from the USA they talk about it a lot. And if you look, for example, we are talking about transgender people, they do not actually talk about it at all. They do not really care because it is not a problem for them.”

(Respondent Lukas)

“I would not say necessarily different ethical standards in terms of what is right or wrong, but the scale might be little bit different. Or where is edge, where is the line? In different cultures might be put in different situations differently.” (Respondent Michal)

Nevertheless, some of the respondents admitted that they believe in substantially different perspectives on ethics in various cultures.

“The ethics of, let us say, the person from Central Europe and ethics of person, let us say, from Middle East will have different views on the questions about the personal freedoms and... But let us say people from Asia will also think differently about, for example, family, of course. So, yes. Different vastly.” (Respondent Radek)

“I think ethics and culture are just one essential part which walk along each other and holding hands all the way, so, one does not exist without another.

So yes, definitely. I think there is a strong connection between these two words.” (Respondent Yanina)

With no regards to the position of the respondent to the impact of cultural differences on the perception of ethics, each of them linked the ethics with the personality of each particular individual and the factors, which actually contributed to the development of personality – differences in the background such as: education, family, religion, surrounding and community, and experience.

“Ethics if more about family you have been raised in, I think think lying, honesty, talk to the person...It is not cultural. It is really more about your family and your own values. It is the environment. The environment always has some impact”. (Respondent Michaela)

“I think that ethics is something very personal, at least in my mind. I understand that there is some general moral, which is more-or-less understood in the similar way but ethics is more personal or professional. I would even say both personal and professional because we hear a lot about professional ethics of doctors or other communities. Anyway yes, ethics is very personal, and anything connected with personal believes is influenced by culture. It would be difficult to say how exactly or to which extent because it is not only about culture, it is about family, demographics. If the person is from super poor family from the US ghetto, the ethics would be perceived differently that if we talk about the guy from Prague or Russia”. (Respondent Oleg).

Another factor was related to the background was religion. Only two of the participants mentioned it, however, their emphasis, clear dedication to the religious norms and principles

as well as confidence in their ethical beliefs was perceived by the author as the attribute of higher ethical literacy and possibly higher level of ethical standards.

“On the top (responding to most influential factors of ethics)... it could be religion... it is huge issue all over the world.” (Respondent Petr)

“It always boils down to like Christian principles, let's say, not really in a religious sense, but more in human behavior and sense of good. So, you know, like, don't steal, don't kill, don't ... all these don'ts.” (Respondent Radek)