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Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

The Capacity to Recognize Unethical Acts

Only when we can distinguish sociocentric thinking from ethical thinking can we begin to develop a conscience that is not equivalent to those values into which we have been socially conditioned. Here are some categories of acts that are unethical in-and-of themselves:

  • SLAVERY: Enslaving people, whether individually or in groups;

  • GENOCIDE: Systematically killing large masses of people;

  • TORTURE: Using torture to obtain a "confession";

  • DENIAL OF DUE PROCESS: Putting persons in jail without telling them the charges against them or providing them with a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves;

  • POLITICALLY MOTIVATED IMPRISONMENT: Putting persons in jail, or otherwise punishing them, solely for their political or religious views;

  • SEXISM: Treating people unequally (and harmfully) in virtue of their gender;

  • RACISM: Treating people unequally (and harmfully) in virtue of their race or ethnicity;

  • MURDER: The pre-meditated killing of people for revenge, pleasure, or to gain advantage for oneself;

  • ASSAULT: Attacking an innocent person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm;

  • RAPE: Forcing an unwilling person to have intercourse;

  • FRAUD: Intentional deception to cause someone to give up property or some right;

  • DECEIT: Representing something as true which one knows to be false in order to gain a selfish end harmful to another;

  • INTIMIDATION: Forcing a person to act against his interest or deter from acting in his interest by threats or acts of violence.

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