A contract is a legal binding that defines an agreement between two or more parties. Such parties normally agree mutually to work under certain principles and guidelines for a specific period. Failure to honor the deals outlined in the contract may lead to legal and ethical implications. The scenario presented of the newspaper columnist is a dilemma that forces her to choose between honoring the deal or taking another job which is paying her better. She engages in what is referred to as partial responsibility by notifying the first firm that she is terminating the contract by disregarding the legalities of the existing deal. Most contracts are made because of such like reasons where a person gets a better paying deal in the course of the contract. It is true that the individual might not have known that such an eventually would have met her later in her life, but it was also her duty to negotiate the terms and conditions of her contract to ensure that she gets a clause that would allow her to end any contract at a particular time.
The columnist, therefore, failed to make her case during the contract negotiation and therefore has no right or obligation to walk away from it. The behavior of terminating the contract is both morally and ethically wrong. Ethics is sometimes referred to as an agonist of the law as asserted by Ruggiero (2011). Law could not have existed if ethics were absent. The law acts as a reflective mirror that gives people an indication of whether they have done wrong or right. The actions of the columnist could also be regarded as wrong given that they play a role in disrupting the social and economic order. If it is right to break a contract because of a better paying job, then everybody would be doing that hence disrupting the socioeconomic tenets of a country.
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I believe that the most difficult ethical question to find answers for is whether something is legal or illegal. Such an ethical is question is difficult to answer because most laws or the perceptions of legality are a product of the societal populism or majority thinking. Laws are made from morals, and most morals are unique to a given people. Therefore, when a person raises a question on whether something is legal or not, it raises ethical questions, because something might be considered legal or illegal due to its popularity with the people and not necessarily as the impact it has on the people. With regards to Good vs. Evil, being good is a quality that is derived from the natural or eternal law. It involves practicing what conforms to the desires of the eternal law which are defined by God. Evil is the opposite of goodness and involves disregarding the natural law. Ruggiero (2011) asserts that wrong and right are characteristics of the conscious. When a person does something that resonates with the conscious then it is right and wrong then it does not appeal to the conscious. On ‘Should vs. what is', should represent an obligation of what humanity ought to do, while what is, represent a mandatory action that defines humanity. Both Aquinas and Augustine would have given the matter different perspectives. Whereas Aquinas would have sought the application of legal justice to evaluate the actions that define general good, Augustine would be more tangential on the matter hence feeling for his fellow human being. Aquinas believes that everyone has a role to play in the society and therefore whatever happens to a person in the society is likely to affect the whole community. Augustine, on the other hand, is reserved and would have disregarded the law of justice and looked at the general benefits it has on an individual.
References
Ruggiero, V. R. (2011). Thinking critically about ethical issues . Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education.
