How to Meet Your Ethical Obligations: Your 6 Responsibilities Toward Others

One of the most difficult questions we face in life is this:  What are our ethical obligations to other people?  For instance, what do you ethically owe to your parents?  What obligations do you have toward your adult children, siblings, neighbors and friends?  Do you have certain responsibilities to other people in society who you don’t even know?

Of course, some of our responsibilities are defined by our personal beliefs.  For instance, I know people who feel no responsibility to emotionally support or financially assist their parents.  They simply don’t believe that they have a moral duty to be kind to and help their elders.  By contrast, I had a single mother, and I felt responsible to provide her with emotional support and, at times, financial support, until she passed away.  So, our personal belief systems can influence what we feel are our responsibilities toward others.

But there are some responsibilities that we have toward others that are universal.  They don’t depend on our relationship to the person.  Nor do they depend on our personal beliefs.  Rather, these obligations are set-in-stone.

Below are the set-in-stone, non-negotiable obligations that you have toward others.  Commit yourself to following them.  If you do so, not only will you become a highly ethical human being, but you will make the world a far better place.

Treat All People with Respect

You have an ethical obligation to treat every person you encounter with respect.  There is no flexibility to that rule.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re angry, frustrated or offended.  It doesn’t matter if that person works for you, or is serving you in some fashion.  If you want to be an ethical person you must treat every person respectfully.

When you respect others, you show regard for their feelings and wishes.  And you don’t do or say things that are harmful or hurtful to them.  But what does treating others with respect mean in practical terms? 

At a minimum, it means that you speak kindly to other people.  You don’t ridicule, insult or threaten others.  That may seem like a very low standard for behavior.  Frankly, it is.  And yet, I know many people who struggle to meet that very low standard.  There are people in our society who choose not to speak respectfully to others.

And it should go without saying, but treating others with respect also means respecting other people’s bodies.  It means that we don’t touch people in ways that they don’t want to be touched.  And we don’t look at people in ways that make them feel uncomfortable.  Furthermore, respecting others means that we don’t make remarks about other people’s bodies that are unkind or that objectify them. 

We have an ethical obligation to treat all people with respect.  Take that obligation seriously.  Be careful that in all your interactions, you consistently treat others and speak to others respectfully, with the utmost care.

Have Compassion for Others

We have a responsibility to treat others with compassion.  When we have compassion for others, we are concerned if they are suffering.   And that concern leads us to want to alleviate that suffering. 

Realize that being compassionate is the opposite of being judgmental.  So, if we are judgmental, and we see a homeless person, our response will be, “Well, that person just needs to get a job and stop being so lazy.” 

But if we’re compassionate, we’ll think to ourselves, “It must be so hard to not have a home or a job.  I can imagine that this person must have had some difficulties in life to get to the point where he or she has no home.  Maybe I can help the plight of the homeless by contributing to my local homeless shelter or church.”

We often are judgmental because the suffering of others is unnerving.  I’ll concede that it’s upsetting to see poor, mentally ill or drug addicted people.  So, we reassure ourselves by thinking, “I could never be poor, mentally ill or drug addicted because I make good choices.  And people with those issues have made bad choices.” 

But the reality is that human beings are fragile.  And any one of us, under sufficiently bad circumstances, could end up poor, mentally ill or drug addicted.  As they say, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” 

So, the ethical response we should have when we witness social ills is compassion.  We need to care about those in our society who are suffering.  And we need to try to relieve their suffering to the extent that we are able.

Be A Reliable Person

One of your primary ethical obligations toward others is to be reliable.  Your word should be your bond.  That means that if you commit to doing something, then do it!

Of course, outside of a contractual agreement, you can be unreliable and break your word without legal consequences.  But there will be consequences of another kind.  When you are unreliable and don’t keep your word, you destroy the trust between yourself and others.  And without trust, a relationship is doomed to fail.

Now, I know people who would say, “Well, what’s the big deal?  So what if I don’t keep my word?  No one dies if I break a promise.”  That’s true. 

But when you aren’t dependable, then people aren’t going to take you seriously.  They’ll think, “He doesn’t have his act together.  He can’t keep his commitments.”  So, while people may tolerate you, if you are unreliable, they aren’t going to think highly of you.

So, be reliable.  Be the kind of person who everyone says, “You can count on him/her to do exactly what they say they’re going to do.”

Work to Empower Others

We each have an ethical obligation to encourage others.  Realize that encouraging and empowering others to be successful is one of the hallmarks of emotional maturity. 

When we are emotionally immature, the success of others is threatening to us.  We fear that if others succeed, we’ll seem like failures by comparison.  But when we are emotionally mature, the success of others doesn’t threaten us.  Instead, we have confidence in our own achievements and unique talents. 

I know for myself that the encouragement of others can be life changing. Over the years, I’ve had teachers and colleagues who told me that they thought highly of my abilities. And their generous words inspired me to accomplish more with my life than I would have ever thought possible.

Not only should we encourage others to be successful, but we also should encourage others when they are facing challenges.  Life sometimes can be hard.  So, at times, we all need encouragement and support.  Be the kind of person who people can turn to when they need someone to cheer them on!

So, be an encourager.  Be someone who is a cheerleader for others and who inspires people to succeed.  And be someone who supports others when they face life’s inevitable challenges.

Take Responsibility for Your Words and Actions

One of your ethical responsibilities in life is to be accountable for your behavior.  That means taking responsibility for your actions.  And when appropriate, apologizing for your behavior. 

The problem is that when you fail to apologize when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings or done something wrong, you chip away at the goodwill that is necessary in that relationship.  After all, people will forgive you if you make a mistake.  But few will forgive you without your apologizing first.

I’ve known people during my lifetime who’ve never said the two words, “I’m sorry.”  And these are by no means perfect people who’ve never done anything wrong.  Rather, they are people who simply don’t want to be accountable for their actions or acknowledge their mistakes.  And it is to the detriment of their relationships.

Realize that when you apologize, you show that you think the other person a valuable human being.  And that their feelings matter.  When you don’t apologize, you are effectively saying, “You don’t matter.  And therefore, if I hurt you, it doesn’t matter.” 

Ethical people don’t send that kind of message.  Instead, people of high ethics treat others with extreme care.  And if they hurt others, they quickly acknowledge the validity of the other person’s hurt feelings and apologize.

So, take responsibility for your actions.  Acknowledge your mistakes, apologize when necessary, and treat the feelings of others with the care that they deserve.

Be Civil to All

Unfortunately, in today’s society, we don’t place an appropriate emphasis on our obligation to be civil to others.  As a result, a lack of civility abounds.  People are impolite and uncivil without apology.

For example, in our political discourse, politicians insult one another and engage in crude name calling.  Within families, children speak to their parents and teachers without deference and respect.  On social media, people ridicule others without a hint of embarrassment for their behavior.

Unfortunately, all this uncivil behavior means one thing.  Our society is becoming increasingly uncivilized.  For example, I have a friend who occasionally receives angry emails from his middle-aged son. These emails are littered with foul language.  The son criticizes and ridicules his father, and he is unashamed for his abusive behavior.  The emails are depressing.  They are yet another example of how uncivilized we have become. 

If you want to be an ethical person and meet your social obligations to others, be a civilized human being.  Be civil even when you just don’t feel like it.  Choose to conduct yourself with manners, decorum and kindness at all times and with all people. 

If you want to meet your ethical obligations to others, take seriously your 6 responsibilities outlined above.  If we all chose to be highly ethical and meet our moral responsibilities to others, our world would be a much better place. (To read about the power of taking responsibility for your actions, click here.)