Ethics

2 Pages 452 Words

We teach the children only the highest of our ideals, the most virtuous of our values. An integral part of our “code of chivalry” is Immanuel Kant’s Golden Rule: Do as you would be done by. It is taught as a rule to be followed not only in school, but one to live by. Children never fail to imitate the behavior of their elders. This is a beckoning to us, the people of the village who will raise the child, to illustrate our words, to show that the Golden Rule isn’t just an empty cliché.

Whether we look to utilitarianism or consequentialism and always consider the outcome of a particular action, or conform to a more deontological form of ethical thinking and focus on always acting in a manner that seems ‘right,’ a beginning of an overview on this subject would serve to shed light on a common, yet far from resolved issue plaguing those who grapple with the issue of the death penalty.

In examining the ethical issues surrounding businesses today, it is important that we examine a few types of ethical views in order to better understand this heated issue at hand. The Consequentialist view is that thoughts and actions must be right to make the world a better place, and therefore, the right action is the one that produces the best consequences. Utilitarianism is a form of Consequentialism developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism takes Consequentialism one step further and defines the action that will produce the best consequences as the one that produces the most happiness. Act-utilitarianism holds that each case should be judged separately in terms of which possible action would maximise happiness; this means that there are no rules to follow, but the theory seems to provide a decision-procedure to act upon in that one acts upon a principle of justice. However, as a system of moral analysis, Utilitarianism has a number of difficulties. One of the major problems is the fact that it is extremely diffi...