...to save their feelings. It seems that the solution to our problems is determining what the right thing to do is. One perspective, with deontology is philosopher Immanuel Kant, who said that lying was always morally wrong. He said all people are born with an "intrinsic worth,” also called human dignity. This dignity derives from the fact that humans are capable of freely making their own decisions and guiding their conscience...
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...The ethical theory of consequentialism states that we ought to base our moral decisions on the decisions that create the best outcomes. Therefore people should act so as to maximise good consequences. On the other hand non-consequentialism focuses on the moral rightness or wrongness of an act by looking at its intrinsic qualities rather than the nature of its consequences. I do not believe consequentialism is superior to non-consequentialism as a basis for making moral decisions due to its flawed nature. Consequentialism is impractical in real life situations as it is very demanding on a person. For they have to think through all the potential consequences of an action which is very time consuming. It is also highly unlikely a person will be able to accurately perceive all the potential consequences of an action at the time of making the decision therefore making it unrealistic. Another objection raised against consequentialism regarding it being too morally demanding is that it suggests one should abandon or neglect one’s own pursuits of happiness if even slightly better results could be created by acting in a way against the good of the person. This is asking people to act selflessly which is very unlikely and goes against most peoples natural instincts. This point also raises the issue that people are rarely if ever making decisions that will create the best outcomes and if they were it would be impossible for normal life to ensue as every act would be questioned, even something...
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...Approaches to ethical decision making at times can be made using different philosophical approaches, which was the first part of our assignment this week; the completion of Appendix B where we were to decide which course of action was to be taken based on each philosophical approach for the given scenarios. The three philosophical approaches are: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Consequentialism is the view that the value of actions is derived solely from the value of its consequences. In accounting, this approach is used to analyze which decision is most ethical based on the harms and benefits to the stakeholders; basically, it is the decision that does the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. In short, consequentialism is the decision is ethical if the positive outcome is greater than the negative outcome. Deontology is the ethical theory that is concerned with duties and rights. Whereas consequentialism is concerned with actions consequences, deontology is concerned with the obligation or duty motivating the decision (Brooks, 2007, p. 330). Decisions are based around moral standards, rights, fairness, and principles. Virtue ethics seems to lie somewhere between consequentialism and deontology; its primary concern is with traits of character that are morally right. Virtue ethics focuses on an individual’s integrity and character in relation to the moral community, such as professional communities (Brooks, 2007, p. 332). Scenario 1 The...
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...Deontological Ethics Virtue Ethics Definition “Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that holds that an action is right if it produces, or if it tends to produce, the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people affected by the action. Otherwise the action is wrong. According to utilitarianism, we should evaluate an action by looking at its consequences, weighing the good effects against the bad effects on all the people affected by it. If the good outweighs the bad, it tends to be a good action; if the bad outweighs the good, it tends to be a bad action” (DeGeorge, R. T. (2005). “The deontological approach to ethics denies the utilitarian claim that morality of an action depends on its consequences. Deontologists maintain that actions are morally right or wrong independent of their consequences. Moral rightness and wrongness are basic and ultimate moral terms. The deontological approach is not dependent on good and the production of, or the failure to produce, good. A person’s duty is to do what is morally right and to avoid what is morally wrong, regardless of the consequences. “Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Virtue ethics has three central concepts, virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia...
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...person acts and does not take into consideration particular acts, rules, or consequences, the only consideration is if the person is acting morally or unmorally. Virtue theory is composed of three main ideas eudemonism, agent-based theories, and the ethics of care. Eudemonism is based in reasoning, agent-based theories are based in common sense and intuition, and ethics of care is solely based on justice and it should be noted as a primarily feminist idea. Utilitarianism is maximizing pleasure over pain not for only oneself but for the greatest number of people possible. Utilitarianism is often seen in a religious sense and can be attributed to the Christian teaching of Jesus Christ or the Buddhist teaching of the Buddha. Utilitarianism can also be seen as a hedonist as written about by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, since the act does not cause a negative effect for others. Utilitarianism’s main lesson is maximizing pleasure over pain, but can be interpreted in more than one way. Deontological ethics is basically making the correct moral choices; this can be seen through a religious spectrum as following the rules of the (Christian) church and doing the Lord God’s will. The person committing an act may act immorally but not break a moral rule, but the action behind the motivation to commit the act is not seen as morally correct. A religious person may commit a crime but still be morally justified in the eyes of the church. It can be summed up as “The law of God...
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...action is deemed morally right if it leads to the greatest possible happiness for the greatest number of people. The motivation behind a choice is never considered in utilitarian theory. For reasons of verifiability, it only ever looks at the consequences of what you’ve done. For that reason, it is an ethical theory that greatly appeals to businesses. Trying to determine how much something is going to cost (the negative effects) versus the benefits (the positive effects), drives companies to find projects that will lead to the greatest monetary gain, and happiness for their shareholders. Corporations, you will often hear, exist to make money and thereby make their shareholders happy. And you make money by producing products profitably, and gaining market share. Utilitarianism would say that a business is morally right if it considers all the consequences- both good and bad- equally, before making a decision on whether to adopt a course of action. However, it can be difficult to determine what the scope of the consequences should be when making a cost-benefit analysis. From who the affected parties are, to how to measure the consequences. Ford chose to confine their analysis to themselves (and by extension their shareholders) and the consumers of their product. I find no problem with this. But their analysis is termed entirely in money. The question then is, can everything be priced? Ford thought so, and placed a price on the human lives lost as a consequence of their unsafe...
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...Jeremy Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism – Essay a) Explain how Bentham’s Utilitarianism can be used to decide the right course of action. [25] Jeremy Bentham was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer that developed a theory of Utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham was particularly interested in the area of social reform during the 18th century and his theory of Utilitarianism is as a result of this passion. Bentham’s theory became to be known as Act Utilitarianism. This is because the theory was concerned with the amount of happiness and pleasure that an individual’s action causes in order to decide whether it is morally right or wrong. Utilitarianism is a teleological theory, this being as the morality is not concerned with the action itself, but rather the consequences of said action and the amount of pleasure it subsequently results in. For example, if an act results in a high amount of pleasure then it can be deemed to be morally justifiable, where as if no pleasure is created then the act would be morally unjustifiable and wrong. The rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by both the pleasure in which it creates and its utility/usefulness. Bentham said that the morality of an action can be calculated by looking at the amount of pleasure it produced; as well as using what he developed as the Hedonic Calculus. The Hedonic Calculus places a numerical value on the morality of an action, this being calculated through a number of criteria that mist be given a value...
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...Value provide a good framework for deciding what right actions are and specifically what actions are deemed intrinsically valuable. Consequentialism is going to emphasis that actions maximizing intrinsic value of all people affected by a situation are morally right while Kant is going to stress that only the motive behind an action determines whether an action is right, regardless of the consequences. Although consequentialism attributes the rightness of an action only on a consequence, consequentialist theories are broader theories of right action because they consider both motives and consequences in making moral decision, whereas Kant’s theory does not. Consequentialist theories of right action have two components. The first component states that a consequentialist theory will always answer what is intrinsically valuable. An object or thing that has intrinsic value is something that has value for its own sake. For example, pleasure and the feeling of happiness are intrinsically valuable because they are good in and of itself. The specific thing that is deemed intrinsically valuable can change according to what consequentialist theory one accepts. For example, utilitarians find the welfare of sentient beings intrinsically valuable while a hedonist finds only pleasure intrinsically valuable. The second component of consequentialist theories explains a principle of right action. In the view of a consequentialist, right action is the action that will produce the greatest...
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...that a morally good action is one that benefits the greatest number of people.” A perfect example would be Ozymandias and what he did to the city of New York during the government and foreign affairs. He believed in utilitarianism because he thought rather than nuclear bombs being sent from US to Europe to the Middle East to Russia and vice versa. Every country had nuclear weapons pointed at one another, and on the brink of a new world war. Ozymandias set off a bomb and killed thousands of people in New York, yet he simply did this all to end the tension with nuclear weapons and ended a war that was going to break out. This was exact situation was a result...
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...to learn your results early. What would you have done, and why? Would you have considered it a moral decision? If so, on what basis would you have made it? If I were in the same situation as the other applicants, I definitely would have checked my status. Getting into Harvard is probably one of the biggest accomplishments one can make in their professional career before completing business school. Upon graduation, a graduate’s door is blown open to exclusive networking mixers, job assistance searches, and invaluable connections made with peers. Therefore, if I had to wait another month, I probably would have made the same mistake the other 119 students did and attempt to check my application status. However, I would (probably like most people) justify my actions by shifting the blame of the unethical behavior to the shoulders of Harvard and ApplyYourself because “it was too easy to check.” With that said, I would consider the action unethical, and when being rejected along with the other 119 students, I then would probably reflect on my actions and accept I had made a mistake. I would have made this decision by weighting the non-Kantian form of non-consequentialist’s first rule – moral decision making involved the weighing of different moral factors and considerations. I would say that it was more immoral to check my status rather than waiting to find out Harvard’s decision. 2. Assess the morality of what the curious applicants did from the point of view of egoism, utilitarianism...
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...medications are no longer working. She’s tired of fighting, tired of hurting, and tired of waiting to die. After consideration and discussions with her family she has decided to ask the doctor to help and end her life. The doctor feels remorse for the elderly lady and wants to help but cannot decide if it is the ethical thing to do because he knows that what he’s being asked to do is considered physician-assisted suicide. How is physician-assisted suicide any different than regular suicide? Does the fact that a person is terminally ill make it right? Who gets to decide if it is right? These are questions people may ask themselves when deciding whether or not they think physician-assisted suicide is ethical. Whether it is requested or not, many would say it is unethical for a physician to deliberately cause death to a person. Physicians take an oath to first do no harm. Others may say that a person has the right to make his or her own decisions about his or her life. In this paper, I will explore each side of physician-assisted suicide and how it relates to virtue ethics, along with how I feel relativist would see the issue. Does physician-assisted suicide differ from regular suicide? Physician-assisted suicide is when a physician aides in a patients death by providing the necessary means for a patient to end their life. This is usually done in the form of prescriptions. Regular suicide is when a person...
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...happiness.” (Bentham, 1). To sum up, the principle of utility states that the actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong if they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Utilitarian ethics primarily values the good of the community over the good of the individual; as overall,...
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...relieving pain and suffering for that person using Kantian theory to best support this claim. This paper will consider the ethical complexities of euthanasia. It will take into consideration and briefly explain the ethical theories of deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics to analyze whether the use of active euthanasia is indeed a moral act and if it is morally permissible for doctors to end the lives of their patients by use of euthanasia and should laws allow it? Euthanasia is a form of suicide. People should not be allowed to kill themselves nor should others be allowed to assist them in doing it. The debate of the use of active and passive euthanasia and whether it should be morally permissible and accepted into law has been under much controversy over the years. Active euthanasia should not be permitted because it violates laws against killing, such as criminal homicide-the unlawful taking of the life of another. It is also contrary to the role of the physician which is to prolong the life of patients, and it is considered suicide; going against the values of personal independence and the ability to make moral decisions. “The physician who performs euthanasia assumes unique responsibility for the act of ending the patient’s life.”(Opinion 2.21- Euthanasia, 1996). This is murder. Though physician assisted homicide is legal in very few states in America a physician can’t give life and...
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...Ethical Perspectives Paper Part I: Please provide answers to the following: 1. Identify the relevant facts of the Ford Pinto case: In 1970 Ford introduced the Pinto, a small car that was intended to compete with the then current challenge from European cars and the ominous presence on the horizon of Japanese manufacturers. The Pinto was brought from inception to production in the record time of approximately 25 months, where a normal car usually takes 43 months. This showed an expedited time frame for the Pinto. On top of time pressure the team was also required to follow a limit of 2000, that meaning it could not exceed $2000 in cost and it could not weight more than 2000lbs. When it came to routine crash testing of the Pinto, it was revealed that the Pinto’s fuel tank often ruptured when struck from the rear at a relatively low speed. This was because the fuel tank was positioned between the rear bumper and the rear axle, and when impact was made studs from the axle would puncture the fuel tank, spilling gasoline that could be ignited by the sparks. In crash testing 11 vehicles, 8 of the cars suffered potentially catastrophic gas tank ruptures. There were several possibilities for fixing the problem, but given the restrictions of limit of 2000, they made no changes. The most controversial reason for rejecting the production change was because of Ford’s cost-benefit analysis. Ford believed that the cost of rebuilding the Pinto to make it safer were far more expensive than...
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...approach to abortion witnesses Queensland Government engaging in the rights-based realm asserting that foetal life is to be afforded liberal rights at the expense of a woman via the formulation of anti-abortion laws . However, the politics of abortion is patent in ways far beyond centralised government with the discursive framing of abortion often being left to non-governmental actors given the sensitivity and unwillingness of politicians to copiously address abortion. This has resulted in the emergence of a rigid debate between foetal rights and women's rights making liberal rights...
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