Ethics Changing with the Younger Generations

As the world and time goes on, things change. Whether it be how we view things or how we treat people, you can see the changes between different age groups. Now not all generations act the same way but the majority of people act a certain way about different things. There a few that you can see the difference in how generations view certain ethics. This whole week I reached out to friends and co-workers to get their input and these were somethings they suggested. 

1. Tips

From talking to people from the younger generations, I’ve heard a lot about how people who waitress get better tips from those who are younger rather than the older generations. I think this shows that the younger generations understand how hard they work and that tips are where they get the most money. This also shows how we don’t feel like we are entitled to their helpfulness and niceness.

2. Entitlement

Though the news and media outlets my paint Millenials and all the younger generations as entitled to feeling like we are owed more or complain too much about how we aren’t given help. But honestly, it’s quite the opposite. Younger generations are also harped on for saying no problem or of course when people say thank you but in reality, that’s just their way of saying “no need to thank me.”  Younger generations feel like there’s no need to be thanked. 

3. Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is based on a theory by Aristotle about recognizing personal character and thriving in finding one’s self on a path to eventually be a morally good person. Younger generations are very much trying to find themselves and become who they’re meant to be without worrying about how it could affect the other aspects of their life. Now, this isn’t an everyone for themselves method, it’s more so about finding who you are through your experiences and letting events shape you. 

4. Consequentialist

This is all about realizing things have consequences and sticking up for what you did and handling the outcomes from it. I believe the younger generations all about do what their gut instincts tell them to do and know that it could lead to some bad consequences but ultimately be good in the end for others. They put others before themselves a lot of the time and know that it could hurt them in the end but ultimately live with it since they helped out others. 

There are so many other things I could talk about but these are just a few of the many things the younger generations are changing in the world. Now we have a long way to go still but this is just the stepping stones to fix the things that are wrong in the world. 

This blog post was written by Maddie Cannon, General Body Member.