Introduction
The concept of ethics has been, and still is, the basis of life and people have been trying to set a standard that would clearly distinguish right from wrong. Ethics is often a concept with blurred lines and an action is seldom simply categorized u under right or wrong. Throughout the years, many philosophers had come up with several ideas of ethical guidelines, including Utilitarianism, Kant’s Moral Theory, Virtue Ethics, and Moral Pluralism. As human cultures continued to evolve, so did the standard of ethics, giving philosophers harder time to “define” the right and wrong actions. When setting the criteria of right or wrong in daily lives, the theory of Moral Pluralism, which emphasizes on duty of a person to serve good, can …show more content…
Listening to only the majority of the society could bring chaos and there could be a possibility that the society loses its sense of ethics because the governmental policies are too focused on consequences and happiness of actions. For instance, when practice of witch hunt became insanely common during 16th and 17th century in mostly Europe and America, the majority of the society believed that people who are found to be practicing witch craft should be punished severely and so did the government. Government itself created policies that mainly resulted in high numbers of suffering and death of innocent people. Under the concepts of utilitarianism, such an act could be considered right because at that time of history, the majority of people believed that by killing the “witches,” they were able prevent potential harms to the society in the future. The act of witch hunt can be compared to what is now court decisions for criminals; however, it is important for government to set strong foundation of ethics in order to avoid such repetition in history. Thereby, it is highly crucial for the government to achieve substantial evidence and statistics that are able to support a policy that it is willing to implement that the policy would bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest …show more content…
If government is to consider only the results of an action, there could be situations in which people might have intended something bad at the moment, but in the end the happiness outweigh suffering. For instance, such argument could justify the nuclear bombing during the World War II. It is acknowledged that nuclear bombs that were used to attack several countries, majorly Japan, cause serious harms those people and mainly the people. Generations after generations were affected by the nuclear damages done to the environment; suffering definitely did outweigh happiness for the victims. The people who support utilitarianism, however, argue that at a global scale, the nuclear bombing had actually reduced potential harms done to many countries if the war had continued for several more years. In such argument, the utilitarianism gives a room for benefit of the doubt to the act of nuclear bombing that maybe it was a right action for the time being, neglecting the fact that the intention of nuclear bombing itself was to injure innocent people and win the war. Consequentialism could be helpful in assessing the situation and analyze if it did any good or bad to the society; however, actions cannot be evaluated solely on the results as the intentions or nature of an action is a very important factor in ethics. If a person tried to kill another but instead
The concept of ethics has been, and still is, the basis of life and people have been trying to set a standard that would clearly distinguish right from wrong. Ethics is often a concept with blurred lines and an action is seldom simply categorized u under right or wrong. Throughout the years, many philosophers had come up with several ideas of ethical guidelines, including Utilitarianism, Kant’s Moral Theory, Virtue Ethics, and Moral Pluralism. As human cultures continued to evolve, so did the standard of ethics, giving philosophers harder time to “define” the right and wrong actions. When setting the criteria of right or wrong in daily lives, the theory of Moral Pluralism, which emphasizes on duty of a person to serve good, can …show more content…
Listening to only the majority of the society could bring chaos and there could be a possibility that the society loses its sense of ethics because the governmental policies are too focused on consequences and happiness of actions. For instance, when practice of witch hunt became insanely common during 16th and 17th century in mostly Europe and America, the majority of the society believed that people who are found to be practicing witch craft should be punished severely and so did the government. Government itself created policies that mainly resulted in high numbers of suffering and death of innocent people. Under the concepts of utilitarianism, such an act could be considered right because at that time of history, the majority of people believed that by killing the “witches,” they were able prevent potential harms to the society in the future. The act of witch hunt can be compared to what is now court decisions for criminals; however, it is important for government to set strong foundation of ethics in order to avoid such repetition in history. Thereby, it is highly crucial for the government to achieve substantial evidence and statistics that are able to support a policy that it is willing to implement that the policy would bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest …show more content…
If government is to consider only the results of an action, there could be situations in which people might have intended something bad at the moment, but in the end the happiness outweigh suffering. For instance, such argument could justify the nuclear bombing during the World War II. It is acknowledged that nuclear bombs that were used to attack several countries, majorly Japan, cause serious harms those people and mainly the people. Generations after generations were affected by the nuclear damages done to the environment; suffering definitely did outweigh happiness for the victims. The people who support utilitarianism, however, argue that at a global scale, the nuclear bombing had actually reduced potential harms done to many countries if the war had continued for several more years. In such argument, the utilitarianism gives a room for benefit of the doubt to the act of nuclear bombing that maybe it was a right action for the time being, neglecting the fact that the intention of nuclear bombing itself was to injure innocent people and win the war. Consequentialism could be helpful in assessing the situation and analyze if it did any good or bad to the society; however, actions cannot be evaluated solely on the results as the intentions or nature of an action is a very important factor in ethics. If a person tried to kill another but instead