Social Contract Theory Vs Ethical Theory

America must hold an ethical standard when using counterterrorism tactics such as drones in order to maintain support from Americans and nations with active jihadist organizations. This task can be difficult because various groups around the world have different opinions of how terrorism should be approached. For example, individuals who have Kantian ethics ideologies are against the assassination of terrorist because they believe that the killing another rational person is morality incorrect (Algar-Faria, 2015). In contrast, utilitarian ethic condones violence acts if the outcome outweighs the evilness if the violence does not occur. These two ethical positions are often used when discussing the ethicality of counterterrorism

“Yet bombing a concentration camp filled with innocent, unjustly imprisoned civilians also posed a moral dilemma for the Allies. To be willing to sacrifice innocent civilians, one would have had to perceive accurately conditions in the camp and to presume that interrupting the killing process would be worth the loss of life in Allied bombings. In short, one would have had to know that those in the camps were about to die. Such information was not available until the spring of 1944.” (Berenbaum).

To apply utilitarianism to this ethical controversy one has to evaluate which option would benefit society

Bombing has the potential to be viewed as an unjustifiable crime because of its destructiveness, similar to the worldview on the extent of war. This topic related because although the Allies had bombing strikes on the Germans it was necessary in order to win. Americans choice to go to war was necessary in order to win back the dignity and continuity.

In his second example, he weighs the right of, yet another terrorist, who has placed a bomb on an aircraft. He suggest the terrorist should be tortured into disarming it. Levin’s reasoning in this case is lacking in that, a terrorist who is being tortured to defuse a bomb could just as easily activate the bomb and blow himself up as he could disable it to end his suffering. This would leave a person or persons going against their morals torturing the terrorist only to die in the end.

Purposeful bombing of civilians during war has been a common occurrence, but the ethicality of such a practice has been called into question. Generally, there tends to be a great aversion to intentionally causing harm without reasonable basis, yet this type of strategy is still in use. Is the bombing of innocent people justified if it ultimately brings an end to the war? The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II clearly exemplifies the ethical question of whether bombing civilians was right or wrong.

It would appear that the TF article is seeking an ideal theory that aligns with their staunch ideology. The ontological depth of this ideology holds an interesting component grounded within an epistemology of ignorance. For example, imagine the tax code as being a contract with signatories and non-signatories. This contract, similar to social contract theory, is a binding agreement that attempts to maintain the status quo of the agreements made within the contract. However, I want to pose something entirely different with this contract. I believe this contract has written itself out of formal existence, but continues to have stark ideological/educational effects upon every level of the socio-economic classes. The signatories are conveyed as being consensual and rightly so due to this flipped epistemology.

Many people around the world view acts of terrorism as works of individuals not countries. But on August 14, 1945 the United States launched two atomic bombs that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japan. The question at hand is if the usage of such devastating atomic bombs necessary. Over the years historians have argued whether or not the usage of the bombs was necessary, and if it was ethical (Kriger 1).

Consider the following situation: You are an army officer who has just captured an enemy soldier who knows where a secret time bomb has been planted. Unless defused, the bomb will explode, killing thousands of people. Would it be morally permissible to torture them to get him to reveal the bomb’s location? Discuss this problem in light of both Utilitarian and Kantian moral theories and present arguments from both moral perspectives for why torture is morally wrong.

Unlike the Natural Law theory, I believe the Social Contract Theory may have been more beneficial when it comes to Women’s Rights. Social Contract Ethics was a theory that allowed human beings to live in a stable environment and achieve their personal interests (Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics). Unlike Natural Law, the Social Contract Theory was based on rules, thought of by Thomas Hobbes, that pulled the human race together and allowed for organization. Another Social Contract theorist named John Rawls later said that the Social Contract Theory allows individuals the opportunity to gain more achievements because ones birth rights are simply luck (Grant). This means that we can be born rich or poor, but that wouldn’t matter because

I also believe that act utilitarianism is preferable. I liked your examples on number two. I believe that every moral choice should be situational. If someone was to ask a controversial question then they make get the response “It depends.” I often answer questions with this statement. In my opinion a decision should made based on the situation. Scope is an aspect that is used in act utilitarianism, which applies to your example of the terrorist. The book claims, “The greater the scope, the greater the impact on overall utility” (112). When using scope of act utilitarianism it would say kill the terrorist because in the long run the people are greater in number. On a website addressing utilitarianism it suggests, “If it is clear that breaking

The utilitarian approach to ethics is a useful for it notes the importance of having happiness as an end goal. According to Mill, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Here we see that when an action considered right will promote happiness, thus making the action good; an action considered wrong will produce the opposite of happiness, thus making the action bad. For Mill, the consequences of an action determine whether the action is defined as a “right” or a “wrong” action, and these actions will produce either “good” or “bad” results. When positive consequences occur, it is because the right action produced good results; when negative consequences occur, it is because the wrong action produced bad results.

According to Nelson (2015), utilitarianism cannot accommodate a basic sort of moral judgment that many of us want to make. Nelson talks about a situation where reporters were at the JFK International Airport waiting to videotape the responses of those awaiting for a planes arrival. The plane would not be arriving because it had a bomb on board that exploded over Scotland. The mother of one of the subjects on the plane arrived at the airport to pick up her daughter. Once she

Social Contract theory is the idea that in the beginning people lived in the state of nature with no government and laws to regulate them. In order to overcome the issues involved in the state of nature, people entered into agreements to protect themselves and their properties. They did this by uniting, rescinding certain rights under the state of nature, and pledging themselves to an authority that will guarantee certain protections. They all agree to live together under those laws and create a mechanism that enforces the contract and the laws that come with it. Some political theorists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, have differing views as to what the state of nature is and what should constitute as a social contract. One

The ‘Trolley Car Problem’ has sparked heated debates amongst numerous philosophical and jurisprudential minds for centuries. The ‘Trolley Car’ debate challenges one’s pre-conceived conceptions about ethics and law. The purpose of this paper is to substantiate why the act of saving the young, innocent girl and resultantly killing the five prisoners is morally permissible. In justifying this choice, this paper will broadly delve into the doctrine of utilitarianism, and more specifically focus on a branch of utilitarianism known as rule-utilitarianism which is most relevant to this paper; evaluate the pertinence of rule utilitarianism to the Trolley Car Problem and this paper will mention numerous criticisms to this theory and address them accordingly.