Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, And Moral Theories

There are six evaluative principles that are used to evaluate moral theories. They are Consistency, Applicability, Publicity, Internal Support, External Support, and Explanatory Power. I am going to evaluate Divine Command Theory, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Virtue Ethics using these six evaluative principles. First is Divine Command Theory (DCT). For Consistency, DCT is consistent because God either commands an act to be either right, wrong, or it is permissible if God has not claimed if it is right or wrong. An example of this can be seen in God commanding us not to steal because it is wrong. So, according to DCT, stealing will always be wrong no matter what the circumstance because God commanded it, so it is consistent with the …show more content…
Utilitarianism says an act is right if and only if it produces the most amount of pleasure over pain for the greatest number of people and wrong if it fails to do so. If you are presented with the same exact situation, it will either always be right or always be wrong based on whether it produces the greatest amount of pleasure. So, Utilitarianism follows the principle of Consistency because in the same situation you should always choose what promotes the most happiness. Utilitarianism also follows Applicability because it provides a decision-making procedure that helps you determine what will provide the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of …show more content…
Kantian Ethics is action guiding. One ought to always act out of duty for the sake of duty, so it is applicable. Kantian Ethics has Publicity because it is not morally wrong to propagate the theory. However, there is a problem with Kantian Ethics and Internal Support. Kantian Ethics can severely conflict with out deeply held moral intuitions. Take the axe murderer situation for an example. An axe murderer comes to your door and asks where your friend is, and you know your friend is hiding in your house. According to Kantian Ethics, you should never lie, so you should tell the murderer where your friend is hiding. This conflicts with our moral intuitions. It makes much more sense to lie that your friend is not there than to tell the murderer where they are, so they can get killed. This example shows why Kantian Ethics interferes with our deeply held moral intuitions. There are times like this where lying seems absolutely necessary, however that completely goes against Kantian