Introduction People live in different parts of the world where virtues exist leading to ethical decision making. This most often involves dealing with the self or the other and one needs to be aware of taking an individualistic approach where the person is responsible for his or her decision making, and consider how it affects the self, rather than the other. Sometimes, the analysis deals with whether the proposed behaviour promotes value in one person or at the expense of the value of a few people. I am going to discuss the Trolley Problem in analyzing deontology and utilitarian ethics in justifying principals, moral rules and who wins. Ethics It is hard when it comes to decision making when determining what is right or wrong. Ethics is very hard to define depending on an individual or what family and friends think and can be viewed as a standard of rights and wrongs that spell out what people should and …show more content…
These are the standards we establish from hurting others because in our beliefs hurting others is wrong. From an individual standpoint, ethics can be described as our own established standards of right and wrong. The issue at hand is that everyone’s idea about what is ethical are different. There are certain situation where we know something is wrong such as shooting an armed robber suddenly becomes right to an individual when they threaten to hurt the family. Deontology From a deontology perspective, it is believed its doing what is right because its right. It is not concerned necessarily with impacts or weighing out what might happen. It is simply stating something is right and proceeding to do it. The first argument for deontology is that it is universal and applies to everyone and everywhere at all times and we all have a sense of what is good or bad. An example
Deontological moral theory is a Non-Consequentialist moral theory. While consequentialists believe the ends always justify the means, deontologists assert that the rightness of an action is not simply dependent on maximizing the good, if that action goes against what is considered moral. It is the inherent nature of the act alone that determines its ethical standing. For example, imagine a situation where there are four critical condition patients in a hospital who each need a different organ in order to survive. Then, a healthy man comes to the doctor’s office for a routine check-up.
The deontological view would be that we should act according to a set of rules, obligations, or duties that we must fulfil, unmindful of the consequences. Kant, a popular deontological philosopher of the 19th century, wrote in his “Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals”,
The Virtue, Utilitarianism, and Deontological concepts all have something in a common. Each one of these three concepts concentrates on an individual’s actions leading to various options, in addition to how the options affected others. The variations within each of these concepts are who engaged and was impacted by those options. The Virtue concept concentrates on an individual's character. One could stay in their lifestyle by seeking quality in everything they and others do (Boylan, 2009). The Utilitarianism concept considers that an activity, which is created to the advantage of a team, is fairly appropriate, if it delivers the biggest advantage to that team (Boylan, 2009). Utilitarianism is frequently known through the motto, “The biggest excellent for the biggest variety (Boylan, 2009).” between the three theories, Deontology is the most different. This concept moves around ones choice to control. Deontologists create options depending on understanding that something is right without concern to the higher excellent of others (Boylan, 2009).
Ethics are the principles that shape individual lives in modern society. It is a subjective idea that seems to have a standard in society. Ethics and morals are the major factors that guide individuals to make right and wrong choices. Something that is morally right to one person might be the very opposite of what another person would view as right. There are many factors that can trigger a change in an individual’s view of morality.
Deontology is a non-consequentialist theory. While consequentialism believes the ends always justify the means, deontologists claim that the rightness of an action should not be solely dependent on maximizing the good, even if that action goes against what is ethically right. For example, four critical conditioned patients in a hospital need a different organ to survive and a healthy man comes into the hospital for a check-up, would you kill the healthy man to save the four? According to consequentialism, the doctor should take the healthy man’s organs to save the others, thus maximizing the good. However, we all know that it is ethically wrong. Deontology objects to this way o...
Ethics is a doing and learning experience which causes us as humans to keep an open mind to change. Generally, ethics ask us to live mindfully, to think how we act and even how we feel or do things, which can change the outcome. Sometimes we go down certain roads, which may be harder or make things more complicated or complex instead of making an easier option we just take the easier way out, usually the way that calls for
Deontology refers to the judgment of the morality of an action based on the action’s adherence to a rule or rules. The first philosopher to define deontological principles was Immanuel Kant, who had founded critical philosophy. Kant held that nothing is good without the actual intent being good, and if one acts in accordance with the law, rather than what he thinks. He saw moral law as an unconditioned command and believed it should be established by human reason alone. Even now, with accordance to the law, people are bound to do things within the law, and following the law is considered ethical.
Ethics are moral principles that can be used to help guide peoples decisions. We are all different and therefore our beliefs and opinions differ. There are many ethical theories, and according to Panza and Potthast (n.d.) the following are some that are widely used. Virtue ethics is one theory which states that personality is the most important thing. Living an ethical life, acting right, requires that one develops and demonstrates the quality of courage, compassion, wisdom, and temperance. It also requires that greed, jealousy, and selfishness is avoided. Utilitarianism states that the amount of happiness and suffering created by a person’s actions is what matters the most. As a result, acting rightly includes maximizing the amount of happiness and minimizing the amount of suffering around you. At times you may need to break some of the traditional moral rules to achieve such an outcome. Kantianism is another theory which highlights the principles behind actions rather than an actions results. It states that it requires to be motivated by good principles that treats everyone with respect. If you’re motivated by good principles, you overcome your animal instinct and act ethically. Another ethical theory is the Contract theory, which suggest that ethics should be thought of as terms of agreements between people. It suggests that doing the right thing means obeying agreements set by members rather than those of society. For this theory ethics isn’t necessarily about character, consequences, or principles. The last theory I’m going to mention is Care ethics. Care ethics focuses on ethical attention on relationships before other factors. As a result, acting rightly involves building, strengthening, and maintaining strong relationship...
[1] Ethics is defined as “the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviour of a person or a group with respect to what is right or wrong” (Samson and Daft, 2005, p.158)
Deontology, on the other hand, emphasizes on the moral intuitions that guide one’s conscience for or against certain actions (Curcă, 2013). Deontologists are the opposites of utilitarians because the essential judgment of taking or not taking a course of action is observed in its strictest sense. Apart from feelings and conditions, deontologists also consider the consequences of not following religious rules and natural laws of morality to guide every course of action. Thus, deontologists value three major principles of decision-making: intrinsic morality, the duty of care, and the moral consequences of an action.
It only emphasizes the right actions and right intentions, with the importance of good and benefit by the actions. Deontology is considered as morally good because of the characteristic itself, not because of the product of action is a good thing already. Deontology can be very religious from the divine commandment is part of law. Deontology and Utilitarianism is pretty compatible with each other. Lying is unacceptable, for example, if someone lies in order to bring about desires. Deontologists live in a universe of moral rules, like, killing innocent people, stealing, cheating, or keeping promises. Everyone has a duty to do the right thing, even if it came out badly. Not only to have be motivated, also do the right thing. It is making a decision to whether you do good or bad in life. If we do something on our own choices, we know that is was our duty to do so. According to Kant, “The belief that people out not to be used, but ought to be regarded as having the highest intrinsic value, is central to my ethics, as is having a motive to do what is right,” (Kant
When asked what is the definition of ethics, many responded that being moral meant doing the right thing. But how can we justify what is a good action and what is a bad action? All humans were created equal, but our principles, and ways of thinking can be extremely different. Some may say doing the right thing means following your heart, your inner feelings and intuition. But emotions can be misleading. Others say in order to do what is the morally right thing means to follow the law and do what is right by society, to be accepted. But today’s society is judgmental and can be corrupted with numerous opinions due to the diversity of cultures. So what does it mean to be ethical? Being ethical means doing what is right in terms of virtues, fairness, duties, responsibilities, obligations, and moral believes all which derived from cultures and family backgrounds.
Utilitarianism’s advocacy of happiness by any means is what concerns me about the theory. I believe that happiness is a great thing, but a thing that can only really come from inside an individual. In contrast, Deontology emphasizes a duty to respect other’s autonomy. I take this to mean that people are their own advocates—Deontology promotes fairness, justice, and equal opportunity at happiness rather than guaranteeing happiness itself. It isn’t society’s duty to ensure everyone’s happiness, but rather to ensure that all people are given the opportunity to be happy. This means doing away with excessive income gaps and creating opportunity for advancement in society or social mobility, bringing the...
This means that a person will follow his or her obligations to another individual or society because upholding one 's duty is what is considered ethically correct (1,2). For instance, a deontologist will always keep his promises to a friend and will follow the law. A person who follows this theory will produce very consistent decisions since they will be based on the individual 's set duties.” (Rainbow). Deontology works on the concept “the end does not justify the means” ("Difference Between Utilitarianism and Deontology."). I believe that I will use Deontology in many different situation throughout my life. In my personal life I may find myself in a situation where my friend asks me to pick up his son from school because my friend has another obligation to attend to. According to deontology, the morally correct option would be to pick up his son from school because I would be upholding my duty to my friend. If I did not uphold my duty to my friend by not picking up his son from school, it would be the morally wrong option according to deontology because I did not go through with my obligation. In my professional life I plan to be a pharmacist. Pharmacists have access to many different drugs. A friend could ask me to steal drugs for him. According to deontology, the morally correct option would be to tell my friend that I could not steal
Ethics is a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is acceptable for both individuals and society. It is a philosophy that covers a whole range of things that have an importance in everyday situations. Ethics are vital in everyones lives, it includes human values, and how to have a good life, our rights and responsibilities, moral decisions what is right and wrong, good and bad. Moral principles affect how people make decisions and lead their lives (BBC, 2013). There are many different beliefs about were ethics come from. These consist of; God and Religion, human conscience, the example of good human beings and a huge desire for the best for people in each unique situation, and political power (BBC, 2013).