Student 68

Object 1: T-Mobile Pride Cup

Since 2015, T-Mobile has openly supported pride month through the use of blog posts, pride products, and social media posts to influence society to accept minorities. One such item of support is my pride cup, a symbol of corporate alliance towards the LGBTQ+ community, which demonstrates the key concept of power. It demonstrates how T-Mobile had an obligation as a powerful corporation to support human rights once they understood how society violates those rights and influence others to make the same decision. Companies know of the negative impact of a lack of representation, such as high suicide rates, and thus have an ethical responsibility to use their power for good rather than ignoring the problem.

When public corporations consistently support pride through various donations, products (like my cup), and social media posts, it can help queer people feel connected to society instead of ostracized.Research shows that there is a strong correlation between LGBTQ-supportive workplaces and less discrimination & better health outcomes.

This is an efficient example of the positive consequences of imposing ethical obligations on the knowledge of knowers. My T-mobile pride cup delineates the ethical responsibility large public corporations have on being a good influence on their audience and acknowledging a minority group’s right to exist once they are presented with the knowledge of the benefits of minority inclusion.

Object 2: CPR Certificate

Another object that demonstrates this prompt is my CPR certificate I got in the 10th grade. This certificate shows my ability to do CPR if there is a person going into cardiac arrest or respiratory failure. When signing up for the course, we did so knowing that it was going to be our obligation to administer first aid in times of distress.

We think of the term obligation, it is usually with a negative connotation, like we are being forced to commit some act. However, there are certain types of knowledge that we ourselves consent to ethically use when gaining that knowledge. An example of this is going into healthcare. When you are given the tools to save someone’s life, it is your moral responsibility to do so.

As someone who knows how to resuscitate a human being, it is my ethical obligation to try to save someone’s life if they are ever in need. It would be ethically wrong for me to do nothing in this situation as the societal standard for morality is to value human life; thus the ‘right' thing for me to do with my knowledge would be to save the patient. When I gained the knowledge of CPR, it came with the responsibility of using that knowledge for the betterment of others. This certificate demonstrates the core value of knowledge and its knowers by demonstrating how every CPR certified knower has the ethical obligation to use their skills to save others.

Object 3: My Instagram Page

The final object, my Instagram page, where I frequently post pictures about my personal life, illustrates the negative consequences of not adhering to the ethical constraints of knowledge. I have the account set to private so only my friends and I can access my information, but in reality my information could easily be misused by those who do not oblige to society’s standard of morality.

This object is particularly interesting because in 2018, Facebook, the mother organization of Instagram, was sued for the misuse of their subscriber’s information. This misstep happened due to Facebook’s lax security measures towards safeguarding their subscriber’s information. This situation highlights how owners of sensitive knowledge should be constrained by ethical boundaries, such as guidelines, laws, contracts, etc. As knowers of sensitive information, Facebook had the ethical obligation to maintain the privacy of its users, which it failed to do.

This relates to my object as my account is set on private as I do not want the world to have access to my information. If such a data breach were to occur again by the same company, my information could end up with the wrong people, bearing a multitude of consequences. Those with a culmination of knowledge hold more power over the ones who don't, leading to why all knowledge poses ethical implications on those who know it. If there were no ethical obligations, we as a society would not be able to trust the people we entrust our knowledge to. This is why ethical obligations are important in the relationship between knowledge and its knowers.