Socrates recognized that God’s commandments “cannot be the ultimate basis of ethics” (Rachels and Rachels 156). According to God’s commandments, lying is bad. The doctrine of utilitarisim assumes that any activity, including lying, cannot be wrong if it makes people happy, as long as it does not harm anyone (Rachels and Rachels 162). Joaquin Perez says that the topic of morality is very contradictory when following religious beliefs and beneficiating a society. Perez believes that no matter if it isfor a good or bad cause, lying is against God’s commandments. He confesses however that he lied several times to their parents to not cause them stress or worry about his problems, which he says was a good cause. In addition, obeying authority figures can also play a major role in our moral behaviors and it could be the ultimate cause of a culture’s standard of right and wrong. Milgram’s experiment help us to understand how authority figures can make us go against our own values. In this experiment, volunteers were asked to manage electric shocks to another participant labeled as the learned, who in reality was an actor. Even though the learner was pretending to be shrieked in pain, the majority of the volunteers continued to harm the learned just because the experimented ordered to do so (Roan). Similarly, most people are capable of abandoning their moral values and could misplace their sense of right and wrong when obeying authority figures (Roan). In our society, we may obey the laws and rules of the government to avoid negative consequences, such as getting a ticket or going to jail. But Carter argues that positive consequences are more important that negative consequences because as a society we should try to benefit each
Socrates recognized that God’s commandments “cannot be the ultimate basis of ethics” (Rachels and Rachels 156). According to God’s commandments, lying is bad. The doctrine of utilitarisim assumes that any activity, including lying, cannot be wrong if it makes people happy, as long as it does not harm anyone (Rachels and Rachels 162). Joaquin Perez says that the topic of morality is very contradictory when following religious beliefs and beneficiating a society. Perez believes that no matter if it isfor a good or bad cause, lying is against God’s commandments. He confesses however that he lied several times to their parents to not cause them stress or worry about his problems, which he says was a good cause. In addition, obeying authority figures can also play a major role in our moral behaviors and it could be the ultimate cause of a culture’s standard of right and wrong. Milgram’s experiment help us to understand how authority figures can make us go against our own values. In this experiment, volunteers were asked to manage electric shocks to another participant labeled as the learned, who in reality was an actor. Even though the learner was pretending to be shrieked in pain, the majority of the volunteers continued to harm the learned just because the experimented ordered to do so (Roan). Similarly, most people are capable of abandoning their moral values and could misplace their sense of right and wrong when obeying authority figures (Roan). In our society, we may obey the laws and rules of the government to avoid negative consequences, such as getting a ticket or going to jail. But Carter argues that positive consequences are more important that negative consequences because as a society we should try to benefit each