Ethics by Experience

Ethics- probably the most broad topic to ever discuss. There are "ethics" in every perspective of life- business ethics, patient - nurse/ doctor ethics, hunting ethics, teaching ethics; ethics are everywhere. A set of ethics i am most familiar with would be hunting ethics because I have grown up listening to my father tell me "you can't do that, it's wrong" while sitting in the woods with him. However, what I have never understood is that hunting down and killing the harmless deer in our wildlife isn't considered "wrong" but the way we do it can be considered wrong...

Let me break this down for you. There are hunting seasons within the hunting seasons, for example; the seasons starts off in September with Bow season, and then in October starts shotgun season, so on and so on. There are also limits as to how many deer you can get per season, pertaining to the kind of gun/ archery you use as well. We can not bait the deer during hunting season what so ever, and we also cannot shoot a deer standing on the side of a road. These rules to follow are consider moral rules according to my father because these rules help the season run smoother; it isn't just a "game" for personal game. It is considered to us hunters to be a resourceful season and we follow the set of moral principles so it isn't just a massacre of wild animals. However, is it even ethical to kill an animal that is defenseless and unable to escape half the time? How do we, normal people, decide what IS ethical and what is NOT ethical? 

The answer to that question is one I have gathered from the philosopher Aristotle. We learn by experience; my personal ethics can differ drastically compared to the person sitting beside me and this is essentially because we have experienced different situations as our lives are probably completely different. What I decide is moral, or ethical, comes from the experience I have had with the topic at hand. Society might have a role in steering our beliefs of right and wrong, but ulitmately it is how we have learned by our own experience that allows for us to have our very own ethical code. Business ethics might be totally different, however. These ethics are already set i nstode to assure a successful business. The 10 commandments, however, are mostly just a set of "morals" used to have some kind of social control over the people. For example, "thou shall not murder" is obviously something we all know not to do. But what about when it comes to a life or death situation where it is either you or the other person? Or what about when you're in the line of duty in war? There are many factors that play into each commandment; in every single perspective possible there might be exceptions to this "command"...what it still be unethical, or wrong? 

Basically what I am getting at is that ethics, to me, are nearly impossible to set in stone for each and every person. Societal ethics do not exist, well they might, but they are nearly impossible to follow for EVERY single person. What we consider right and what we consider wrong should come from out very own experience; not what somebody else says is right or wrong.