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I am going to argue why it is okay to tell as small lie to a friend in order to spare their feelings. I am going to touch on two ethical models, these being, Utilitarianism and Deontology. The individual that is a Utilitarian is Jeremy Bentham and the Deontologist is Immanuel Kant. I will be sharing their ideas and explaining why Jeremy Bentham’s ideas are more defensible than Kant’s ideas. I believe that if you are a good friend, it is important for you to keep the most optimal happiness between your friends and yourself. With Bentham's theory, Utilitarianism, the overall goal is to make the most people happy (Bentham 1). If the storyline of a lie is what makes the most people happy, Benthem says it is okay to lie. For Kant, a person is never …show more content…
He states that in no case should you lie (Bennett 2). What Kant focuses on is deontology, this focuses on duty-based ethics. What duty-based ethics consists of is, doing what you should do for the right reasons, your moral obligations (Bennett 2). Sometimes people will do something they know is right to do but, for the wrong reasons. Someone may save someone’s life because they know they will get money out of it while they should be doing it to save that person with or without a reward. Kant believes that lying is wrong and immoral for anyone in any case, no excuses. Kant believes in a good will (Bennett 5). He believes that happiness cannot be achieved through a bad will. A good will must consist of truthfulness, doing the right thing and doing it because you care to help. Kant believes that along with having a good will, you should be morally good. Being “morally good” has to do with following the moral law. Under any circumstance, a person should never corrupt the moral law (Bennett 2). Everyone should live their life knowing and living by this moral law, never making mistakes and always making the right decisions for the right reasons. With the scenario given, telling a small lie to a friend, Kant believes that lying is against the moral law. Bentham wanted to optimize happiness, in that case lying was the answer. Whereas, Kant says that people deserve more than that, each person deserves to know the truth and should …show more content…
Kant’s ideas follow a set of rules and ideas whereas, Bentham’s ideas are based on maximizing happiness. Bentham’s thoughts are much more defensible that Kant’s and I can better relate and back up Bentham’s Theory of Morality. A theory of morality should not be based on a set of rules and regulations that everyone follows, that is my problem with Kant’s theory. He doesn’t focus on making people happy he just focuses on doing the right thing for the right reason (Bennett 3). If you look deeper into this statement, he is still focusing on himself, doing what is right for the best outcome and what is most beneficial for himself. To me, happiness is more important than anything. If I were in the situation, I would say yes, it is okay to tell a small lie to a friend in order to spare their feelings. I see keeping a friendship and good relationship more important than following a set of “moral laws.” Telling the truth should not be written or held under any sort of law or way of life. A moral person will want to optimize happiness as much as possible as well as know their limits on lying. There are may circumstances in which I agree with Bentham’s theory. I believe that some lies are beneficial to a friend, as I touched on before, you may want to surprise someone, technically, you would be telling a lie. An example like this is done through good intentions, to make that person happier overall. I do
Using Kantian philosophy a lie is always immoral and wrong, no matter what the situation is. Kantian ethics establishes the idea that good will be based on the action itself rather than outcome or any inclination one may have to perform an act could be good will.
Kantianism allows a person to lie if the situation is crucial like saving a life but what if all situations just so happens to "save a life?" By following this logic, the world might as well be lying to "save a life" because it fits the second formulation even if the person lying was called out on it. People would have no proof if the person lied or
Philosopher Immanuel Kant has a completely different perspective on the moral righteousness of lying. Kant believes it is unethical and sinful to lie no matter what situation presents itself. “Kant finds it especially offensive, contrasting the ‘dim, moles’ eyes fixed on experience’ with the ‘eyes belonging to a being that was made to stand erect and look at the heavens’. Kant believes in the ideology of promise keeping and if you break your promise, it is considered
I do not believe that anyone should get their feelings hurt when just saying an innocent white lie could save them so much drama. Also protective lies are very important to me. If someone is dealing with a lot of stress or a deathly illness, there is no need to put more on them. However, when it comes to peace keeping lies, I believe that they should not be used. These lies are very hard not to use, and I find myself using them despite my hardest efforts. Trust-keeping lies are one of the worst lies because I feel forced to choose between my personal morals and a friendship. Although I try not to lie at all, I find that social lies and protective lies are the most acceptable. I find that peace-keeping lies and trust-keeping lies are unacceptable yet I still understand that sometimes they are
We are punished for lying, with the consequence growing as we did. You are taught what is right and what is wrong, with little to no grey area for debate. This is the way that Kant views society and what he agrees with. Immanuel Kant was a big believer that lying does no good and that we should not act towards the greater good. In terms of the beggar, Kant would very much be in favor of giving the beggar money. Lying as to whether or not you had spare change would go against Kant’s way of thinking. However, there may be an issue if they do ask word for word “Do you have any spare change?” and you honestly do not have any spare change, then you could honestly say “No, I am sorry. I do not.” Another part of Kant’s way of thinking is a type of maxim called universalism. Universalism states that we should act only if we think that everyone everywhere in the world should be doing it as well. Therefore, if we believe that it would be alright for everyone in the world to give a couple of dollars to all of the beggars everywhere, then we should give them money. If we were to give all beggars everywhere a couple of dollars, and we assumed they spent it on necessary items such as a meal or medicine for a disease, then in theory the world would be a lot less inhabited by beggars or homeless people. In 2005, United Nations estimated that there were 100 million homeless people worldwide compared to the 7.124 billion
I am going to apply the theory of Kant’s Deontology to the case regarding assisted suicide for psychological suffering.
With different views on when it is OK to lie, the people continue to debate. But personally, I respect Kant’s views on the idea that lying is bad. Lying weakens the purpose to serve justice, destroys the liars’s dignity, and messes up the records. But I think that rare situations justify lies. I believe lies to save someone's life or just to protect someone from a big danger is the only type of lie that is justified. Those situations are the only times I think it is OK to lie. It might seem that lying to get yourself out of trouble is a situation that makes the lie justified. But I think that is a selfish reason for your own good and that people are thinking less about the society and more about their own good. Lying to get out of trouble is one of those many lies that are not justified.
When you 're being honest with people, generally they are trying to be honest with you, so it makes the communication process much easier. I abhor the idea of lying to people just for the purpose of reaching your own goals. Even when he or she succeeds I do not think there can be felt a whole lot of satisfaction from the accomplishment based on lies. Maybe I am sounding too idealistic but I strongly believe that our society would be much better if only people became more honest to each other. Primarily, the issue of honesty is concerned with politics and often we can see many crude and brutal crimes made against humanity, which could have been prevented if from the very start people were not deluded by the politicians '
Over the course of this essay, I will present the reader with information on Kant’s Deontology, including, but not limited to, explaining how Immanuel Kant discerns what is morally right and morally wrong. I will then apply these criterion to case number two, and attempt to accurately portray what Kant’s Deontology dictates is the morally correct response. Following this determination, I will show the reader that although Kant’s moral reasoning will lead us to a definitive answer, we should not be so quick to accept it. Interestingly enough, he seems to lead us to what would generally be the correct answer, but perhaps not in the given circumstance and not for the right reason.
Immanuel Kant was a moral philosopher. His theory, better known as deontological theory, holds that intent, reason, rationality, and good will are motivating factors in the ethical decision making process. The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain major elements of his theory, its essential points, how it is used in the decision making process, and how it intersects with the teams values.
Lies are allowable in many cases, like protecting someone's feelings. In the article, It’s the Truth: Americans Conflicted About Lying, it says, “IN the AP-ipsos poll, 65 percent of those questioned said it was sometimes OK to lie to protect someone’s feelings…” (p. 7) Do you really want to lose your friends trust or bond because you agreed they looked fat in that dress?
Ethics is the field of philosophy that deals with morality, human behavior and its moral will to decide what is good and what is bad. As one of the departments of philosophy, also called practical philosophy, it is an extensive science and discusses a wide variety of very different aspects of ethics and morality. One of its kinds is a deontological ethics, which according to Joseph Rickaby is a set of ethical codes that are of interest or which are in accordance with moral rules and regulations. The main precursor of the deontological theory is considered to be the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who completely sacrificed himself to science while acknowledging ethics as the most important field of philosophy. Kant's theory tells us that if we want to act ethically, we cannot do certain acts even if negligence can bring negative results.
What I mean by this extent is telling the truth unless it is going to lead to the harm of another. I wanted to draw this line because in the reading we discussed Kant’s argument which states in short, that we are obligated to the truth in all circumstances regardless of the outcomes. Kant believes this to be true because he is looking at the means to the end, which to him is doing what is right because it is right and not for any other reasons. This led us to taking about the example of the axe murderer looking for someone he’s trying to kill and we know the undisclosed location of this person; if we followed Kant’s view then we would be obligated to tell the axe murderer the location of the person. In Kant’s perspective our morality isn’t affected by disclosing the location of the person to the murderer, but instead the morality of the murderer trying to kill the person is in question. I don’t agree with this, I believe that Kant is on the right track; however, I would take a slightly different approach to his view of morality. This being that it is morally acceptable to be dishonest as long as the reason for this dishonesty is to save or help the life of another person, because in my perspective being a moral person is to look out for the benefit of others. By looking out for others in my personal opinion you are on the right path to living a good
Lying is bad because you can harm someone.In my oppinion i think you can harm someone by telling them to trust you on this one but you personally know you can't be trusted.According to the article lies lies lies by Paul Gray. She told her friend to trust her on this one but she was lying.Another way you can harm someone is by hiding something from them.It would harm a little kid if you told him there were no more cartoons on tv .According to the article “It's the truth about lying’’.Rebecca Campbell told her four year old son that there were no more cartoons on tv.I think it will harm him later because he will find out,and he is going to
To begin, sometimes it is better to lie rather than telling the truth and hurting someone’s feelings. It is not wrong when you tell a little white lie to keep someone you care about from getting hurt. To be specific, if your friend asked you how you feel about her hair, and you do not like it, you would not want to tell her that. Instead of telling the truth, and hurting her fragile feelings, you would rather say a little lie, telling her that you love it. If you are lying to keep someone you care about from getting their feelings hurt, or their pride wounded, then what is the harm? In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with telling small lies, if you are doing it with someone’s best interest in mind.