Success and Ethics

Ethics and success differ mainly in that one, ethics, deals with the intrinsic state of a person, while success is an extrinsic measure of achievement in the world. The person is first in line before the effects that person has on society. What the person is decides what the person does, in other words. Ethics is first, success is second, but that does not mean ethics is more important; is the door more important than the house just because it comes first in line in the function of the house?

Firstly, I will elaborate on the nature of ethics and success. Ethics deals with the soul of a person, their conscience, the state of their thinking, and their actions. Ethics is intrinsic to the person, in other words. Success is extrinsic to the person, in that it is something judged and determined by society.

What ethics a person chooses to follow determines the nature of their success, to a large extent. Bill Gates and Adolph Hitler were both very successful in life. Adolph Hitler’s success was dominated by a code of ethics that made his success a terrible thing. Bill Gates’ success was determined by a code of ethics that said make as much money as you can and give to the poor and afflicted, which made his success a good thing for both him and the poor and afflicted.

Ethics is important because it makes a person either good or bad, and success is important because it makes the world either good or bad. No one is more important than the other. A good code of ethics combined with success is the ideal thing, because then the person and the rest of the world benefit. The opposite is true of the combination of a bad code of ethics and success.

It is not right to say that ethics is the most important. Ethics only effects one person. A good code of ethics is not very useful if it only effects one person. It is much better to effect the whole world in a positive way, and that only comes through success. You see, Machiavelli was not wrong because he emphasized success over ethics. He was wrong because he emphasized success with bad ethics. On the other hand, Socrates was good for the world because he was successful in getting the message of his good ethics out into the intellectual circles of ancient Greece. The initial reaction to the question his to say that of course ethics is more important than success, but without success ethics doesn’t really mean a whole lot.