A person’s actions are right, if their motives behind their actions toward a certain situation have a good intention and they performed appropriate response to certain their situations that life has given to them. For example, a person’s intentions are their motives behind their actions, where as an appropriate action is any response towards any situation which is proper to perform in certain situations that require people to help other people rather than themselves as society deems fit. The following situations are from page 412 of The Philosophical Journey: An interactive approach show about some ethical dilemmas, and the appropriate actions and intentions to figure them out which solution can make an action either right or wrong. In the …show more content…
Even, if Esther’s intentions behind her actions were good, stealing from other people is still wrong. In fact, Esther could have done a lot of things to make money for the fund raiser instead of stealing from somebody. For example, Esther could have organized a another fundraiser for the children like either a food drive to give cans of food to the starving children or organize a car wash to make money or even ask the stranger to donate to her cause rather than stealing from the stranger. This action not only makes Esther into a thief rather than a person who is out to help the poor. Compare to the other scenario, both Danielle and Esther had good intentions behind their actions, but both of their actions are inappropriate for each of the different situations that they were both …show more content…
Fred actions are morally correct because he has a good intent which is to save Reggie’s life and an action that is proving very ethical for the situation in the way that he is saving Reggie’s life. For instance, Fred had the right intent and action during the situation at hand because Reggie was in danger and Fred had to respond quickly to the situation because the brick was falling quickly so he saves Reggie’s life by shoving him. Without any doubt, Fred’s action is appropriate because he had little time and it was the right thing to do in order to save Reggie’s life. For this reason, Fred preformed the appropriate response to the right situation due to the fact that his motives were to save Reggie’s life. Therefore, Fred’s actions are morally right. In contrast to the other scenarios, Fred has both the right intentions and appropriate actions for the right situation; whereas Esther and Danielle have just the right intentions but applying inappropriate actions to their situations make their responses morally
When presented with a statement “There is a difference between what we have the right to do and what is the right thing to do,” it is a variance of what is legally beholden, and the morality of adhering to ethics by taking the correct path. What we have the right to do is interpreted by what is legally authorized by federal, state, or local government laws. The right thing to do is guided by personal conscience that tells the individual the correct thing to do (Mintz & Morris, 2014). It becomes a personal choice.
Ross, William D.. "What Makes Right Acts Right?" The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. 753-760. Obtained from PHIL 250 B1, Winter Term 2014 Readings – Ethics. University of Alberta eClass.
Theory of right conduct for utilitarianism defined by Mark Timmons in the book Moral Theory is that, an action A is obligatory if and only if A has a higher utility than any other alternative action that the agent could perform instead. An action A is wrong if and only if A has less utility than some other alternative action that the agent could perform instead. An action A is optional if and only if (i) A has as high a utility as any other alternative action that the agent could perform instead, but (ii) there is at least one other alternative action that has as high utility as A. (in other words, an action is optional if and only if in terms of utility production it is tied for first place with at least one other action). According to Timmons, an actions rightness or wrongness depend...
When an individual has taken a certain course of action, who is to determine whether that action taken was right or wrong? And what basis should the individual passing judgment use to decide whether that action was right or wrong? Should the individual passing judgment consider the other individual's purpose or intent in taking the action, or should he consider the resulting consequences of the other individual's actions? If the individual passing judgment were to choose to do the first of these two alternatives, he would be taking a deontological stance, as compared to the later which describes the consequentialist view.
The right motive is to do the right thing, or to do one’s duty. According to Kant, the only good thing in itself is a good will, because evil is seen as a mistake in reasoning or error in logic. As a result, even a good action could be evil if it is not done with a good will (right intention), because it would be the result of mistaken reasoning. Right reasoning always leads to doing things for the right reason, which is the same as Kant’s concept of good will. While other good actions may have a certain quality to them, they are not good in themselves due to the faulty reasoning.
Making the moral right decision is never seen on paper. What could be seen as the right thing to do, may not be the right thing for other people. Also, making decisions and then having to face them later on, can impose a difficult problem for many people. Many of us have made a decision that we end up regretting later on. In the healthcare field, decision making could be life and death of a patient
What makes actions right? For some philosophers it is their consequences, like the pleasure or happiness that they produce. However for a deontologist like Immanuel Kant, rightness is the action itself and the obligation to perform it. His ethics is a theory of how a person should act, the actual action and morality of the action. It entails that as long as a person acts in a moral way then the consequences of the actions do not matter. “For Kant, doing the right thing is not a matter of one’s character or disposition or circumstance – all of which are or might be beyond one’s control. Instead, it is the matter of duty, acting out of respect for the moral law.” (Stangroom, J. & Garvey, J. 2005, p.79) Moral Laws are a system of guidelines for controlling human behaviour; like society laws. The Ten Commandments set by Moses are moral laws with the commands of a divine being, moral laws can be a set of universal rules that everyone should abide by. Kant argues that: “The moral law cannot be hypothetical in nature, cannot be of the form, ‘if you want such and such, do so...
In doing the right thing for the right reason there is moral obligations. There are motives for what people do. The films “The Black Mirror” and “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” both in the end seemed to do the right thing for the right reason. In both films trust was broken between people, and in both films Utilitarian’s would probably feel that consequences was morally right. In the Black Mirror, a family was destroyed, people were hurt, but the truth came out in the end. In The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, relationships were erased, but in the end the consequences was fair setting aside whether or not the actions committed were for the
There are many essays, papers and books written on the concept of right and wrong. Philosophers have theorized about moral actions for eons, one such philosopher is John Stuart Mill. In his book Utilitarianism he tries to improve on the theories of utilitarianism from previous philosophers, as he is a strong believer himself in the theory. In Mill's book he presents the ideology that there is another branch on the utilitarian tree. This branch being called rule-utilitarianism. Mill makes a distinction between two different types of utilitarianism; act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. Rule-utilitarianism seems like a major advance over the simple theory of act-utilitarianism. But for all its added complexity, it may not actually be a significant improvement. This is proven when looking at the flaws in act-utilitarianism and relating them to the ways in which rule-utilitarianism tries to overcome them. As well one must look at the obstacles that rule-utilitarianism has on it's own as a theory. The problems of both act and rule utilitarianism consist of being too permissive and being able to justify any crime, not being able to predict the outcomes of one's actions, non-universality and the lose of freewill.
To answer this question, we must consider what the right thing to do was. Moral reasoning poses two questions: What is the right thing to do? and What are the virtues of traits of a person who lives life well.
Despite “doing the right thing,” there are things that can happen beyond our control that can alter the good results we were expecting. However, consequences are measurable and create lasting effects on people. Even though we may intend to do the right thing, a positive outcome is not guaranteed. Sometimes our actions do not just affect us personally, they can also have repercussions for other individuals, such as members of our families. Intentions, on the other hand, cannot always be determined. While someone might claim that they acted with good intentions, that is not always necessarily the
A natural way to see whether an act is the right thing to do (or the wrong thing to do) is to look at its results, or consequences. Utilitarianism argues that, given a set of choices, the act we should choose is that which produces the best results for the greatest number affected by that choice.
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.
This poem by Robert Frost was first read to me in the last year of my high school experience. Back then, not only did I have absolutely no interest in any literary work, but moreover, had no intension to lye there and analyze a poem into its symbolic definitions. Only now have I been taught the proper way to read a literary work as a formalistic critic might read. With this new approach to literature I can understand the underlying meaning to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". In addition to merely grasping the author's intension, I was able to justly incur that this poem, without directly mentioning anything about life's decisions, is in its entirety about just that.
Life threatening situations can be some of the most difficult situations that one can go through. During these types of situations moral lines can be blurred in such ways that what one may think is right for that situation is not actually a moral solution that one should do. In the case of the Heinz dilemma what is verses what isn’t moral is a hard decision to make. In the case of Heinz I feel personally that there were two wrong-doings that were done in order that one right-doing could be achieved. The shop owner was in the wrong for over pricing a drug and refusing to help Mr. Heinz ailing wife, but at the same time Mr. Heinz was in the wrong for stealing from the drug dealer. At the same time he was only forced into that situation due to