Virtue Ethics: A Broad Range Of Ethical Theories

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4) There is a broad range of ethical theories that have differing perspectives on what is considered morally correct and incorrect. To begin, Virtue Ethics is based on virtuous character. Moral standards arise due to virtuous characters and their actions and beliefs. Aristotle is the main philosopher in Virtue Ethics, and he believed that in order to reach Eudaimonia, also known as happiness, it was imperative to develop virtues. Next, Thomas Aquinas is the main philosopher for the Natural Law Theory. This theory states that morally correct actions are those that occur in nature. In other words, it emphasizes that people should look at how things operate in nature and derive from that how we should behave. Next, the theory of Egoism states …show more content…
In order to be a Speciest, one must believe and practice Speciesism, which is favoring one’s own species over a different animal species. Some acts of Speciesism have a greater impact than others, yet Singer believes that almost everybody is guilty of being a Speciest. There is a significant amount of evidence to prove Singer’s point. First, the main argument that humans are Speciests is that we continue using animals for food, even though it is not a necessity for survival. In fact, it is proven that meat is not a vital step for keeping good health (Singer para. 18). There are plenty of food options as an alternative to eating meat, yet humans continue to eat these animals for pleasure. Meat is not necessary for survival in modern life like it used to be for ancestors, so continuing to eat meat simply for pure enjoyment of the taste shows that humans often act selfishly. In addition, it is considered a social norm to eat animals, but extremely wrong to eat another human. Although this is a norm, this belief technically makes people Speciests because they are favoring saving their own species over other species. By killing animals simply to pleasure our taste buds and considering animals to be acceptable to eat, humans prove themselves to be Speciests. Not only do humans eat animals, but they also use them as test subjects. It is considered very unethical to use a human as a test subject in an experiment even for biomedical research, so animals are used. By simply accepting the use of animals in tests over the option of using humans, we are considered Speciests. If humans viewed animals as equals or as valuable as humans, animals would not be used as test subjects. This is a prime example of Speciesism, because we favor the human population by protecting them from being used in biomedical research. The reasoning behind Speciesism seems to be that humans have deeper

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