4 Way Test

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Ethics – the Four-Way-Test – and More!
Our subject today is ETHICS --- THE FOUR-WAY TEST. Our subject today intends to relate those two subjects more closely to each other.:
  * FIRST: Is it the TRUTH?
  * SECOND: Is it FAIR to all concerned?
  * THIRD: Will it build GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIP?
  * FOURTH: Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
We are assaulted daily in the media with news about ethics, from the corporate and government sectors in particular, but also from athletics, the behavior of both coaches and athletes.The definition is that ethics is decision-making – decision-making based on individual responsibility for making right decisions.Ethics is the choice to do what is right, not because it is required or expected, but because it is RIGHT. That requires making sometimes hard decisions. Allow me to take you through some situations, and consideration of some decisions that will help us put the Four Way Test to an increasingly meaningful application..//170
On your vacation, you and a lifelong friend go on a hiking expedition. your friend falls down a steep slope and lies bleeding and unconscious. You manage to back him up .As you approach the hospital, you recall that your friend has no medical insurance, You are concerned that, with no insurance, he might be sent on to a more distant public hospital. So he is identified by your name, your insurance information goes on the hospital record, and your friend gets the emergency treatment you are convinced he needs. A doctor later tells you that without early emergency treatment he almost certainly would have died.//110
Now I pose for you a pair of troubling questions.
Is truth-telling an absolute principle that should not have been violated, even under such circumstances as these? And does the end justify the means? Does saving the life of a friend justify the lie?
To lie, steal is wrong. But if we do not allow for an...