Was Hitler more ethical than you?

Today I learned the most ethical person in the 20th century was probably Adolf Hitler. The entire class was as shocked as I was, but in the end, we all agreed with the professor lecturing us. You might be surprised why...

Ethics and morals are important to Health Activists because they help to determine how we present a topic and what the reader will get from what we've written. Do you know the difference between the two?

I thought I did. Here is a little of how it was presented in our class:

Have you ever thought about the two? How about these questions...

Is it ethical/moral to eat meat?
Is human euthanasia ever ethical/moral?
Is it ethical/moral to put a cat through chemotherapy?
Is it ethical/moral to put a child through chemotherapy?

Ethics and morality are actually worlds apart. Someone who is ethical follows what they believe. They are true to those beliefs no matter what, even if those beliefs may seem crazy to someone else. They may not believe the same thing as someone else - one society may be for something that another society in another part of the world thinks is terrible, but both can be ethical.

Morality is the difference between right and wrong. Ethics is what you do with those beliefs. For example, if you believe it is wrong to eat meat, then when you eat it you are not being ethical.

With that in mind, what do you think now of Hitler's ethics? He believed devoutly that what he was doing was the "right thing", and he did it with brutal consistency.

What he was doing was not moral - it was horribly, terribly wrong and all of your guts told you that as soon as you read the title to this post. But for all his brutal flaws... Adolf Hitler was very ethical.

As Health Activists, we have many options... we can choose to write about something, or not. We can be ethical in what we're writing because we write what we believe at the time, but that doesn't mean we are always right.

Make me a liar...

How do you handle your topics when you're writing? Do you only write about things in which you agree 100%? Do you present both sides fairly? Is that moral? Is that ethical? Isn't that one of the reasons we try to generate discussions in our communities, to explore by seeing what other opinions are? Are you genuine in helping other Health Activists by commenting and participating in these explorations?

As Health Activists, do you think we are bound by the principal to present the facts and only the facts, or should we interject our own opinion into what we are saying? If you present a subject in which you are passionate, how do you handle this?

I handle it by always trying to tell myself, "Okay Health Activist Ellen... make me a liar."

I think this is vitally important because I am not in the business of making news, but writing about it. But I am also in the business of telling my opinion because I am experienced, and patients value and want to read about experiences.

It's difficult for me to write without bias because I am intimately embroiled in the topics I discuss. I am more passionate however, about writing both sides and representing them fairly. I try to present the other side with as much passion as I genuinely feel for "my" side. You know what happens? When I do that with honesty, I often find myself with the need to really reflect on my position, and feeling just as passionate for the other side! What do you think that says about my ethics? ...my morals?