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Ethics Of The Sacred And Our Fellow Human Beings

Decent Essays

Livingston opens his discussion about ethics by introducing the question “how are we to live in relation to the Sacred and our fellow human beings?” (Livingston 259). There are three traditional ways of thinking about and approaching philosophical ethics: deontological ethics, teleological ethics, and virtue ethics. Furthermore, there are three sources and norms from which moral authority can be drawn. Those sources are cosmic or natural law, moral exemplars and ethical prophets, and the divine command theory.
Deontological ethics is the view that “the elucidation of a morality that is necessary, obligatory, and unconditional, irrespective of conditions or consequences” (Livingston 261). In his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, the late …show more content…

King wrote that “whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” and that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King 1). ***. Mrs. Paskusz actions can fall under this philosophical view. Isaacson describes her encounter with Mrs. Paskusz who “after prayer… turned into war reporter, briefly recount[ed] the latest Allied advances on both fronts” and “she bid [them] to spread the news, the blessed us in Hebrew with hands extended” (Comstock 257). Mrs. Paskusz was surely placing herself in a precarious situation, but she did so with the hopes that she’d be able to provide others with a glimmer of comfort and hope. Though Isaacson did not reveal what her thoughts or emotions were immediately after this encounter, simply sharing this encounter reveals the impact it had on her. One can only assume that any glimmer of hope in such a stark situation is a tremendous gift.
The third main tradition of philosophical ethics is virtue ethics in which the main focus are important virtues and the development of high character. King makes it very clear that “segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful… so I urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong” (King 4). King, a very Christian man, believed in powerful Christian virtues and it is evident that segregation

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