My freshman English teacher once posed a thought exercise to my class, one known as the Trolley Problem. In his version, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You can stop the trolley by placing something heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is a overweight man next to you. If you push him over onto the track, you would save the five but kill him in the process. What do you do?
I was initially appalled that some my classmates would choose not to potentially save 5 people. Throughout the class discussion, I kept asking how anyone could decide that one life is more worthy than five lives. I was incredulous. In my understanding of the dynamics of the question, it seemed obvious to me that an outcome of five lives saved was definitely better than an outcome of only one life spared. This question sickened me. If I can’t prove to myself that life, by virtue, has value, how can I make everyday decisions on what is right or wrong? I needed answers, so I approached my teacher.
He introduced me to the doctrine of utilitarianism, or the thought that “good” is whatever maximizes usefulness or benefits society the most. It helped me to express my values and justify saving five lives at the expense of one. This doctrine seemed like the objective compass to lead me through my moral quandaries. I thought I had the answer to
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More importantly, this exercise has pointed me on a path of interesting moral and philosophical discovery. It has led me to ponder challenging issues such as subjective vs. objective morality, legislating morality, and absolute truth. While my understanding of these concepts may still be elementary, I now know that no matter how firmly I believe in my realities and values, they are not universal. Maintaining an open and accepting mind to consider various perspectives of each problem is essential, especially in today’s tumultuous political
Every day we are faced with certain situations that challenge us with how to act in an ethical manner. It can be human nature to feel unsure or conflicted with the correct moral choice. Some can say that one should know how to handle such dilemmas and others may say that there should be a reference of some sort to help guide through such conflicts. Sometimes we know the answers and sometimes we are unsure of how to handle certain situations. Most times we go through life wondering what we should do. As I become further educated on the different theories of ethics, I believe there are answers that are available in guiding one through an ethical dilemma and or judgment. I will discuss Vincent Ruggiero’s three basic criteria, Robert Kegan’s order of consciousness, the three schools of ethics and the correlation between all three.
As technology continues to evolve, our society has become toxic with the way that women are being taken advantage of online and in public. Women are being put in situations to decide whether they want to make a scene to stand up for themselves, or let their bodily autonomy be invaded. In the two articles, there are many examples of harassment and people need to understand that this behavior should not be acceptable. Society approves of these actions against women which is what lets it continue to be an issue today. In “The Quiet Violence of the Unwanted Kiss” and “Should We Feed the Trolls?”, Cauterucci and LaFrance are addressing this problem by working to raise awareness about the abuse women face in-person and on social media.
When thinking about morality, it is necessary to consider how aspects from both nature and nurture, along with free will, may form ones moral beliefs and dictate ones moral actions. To understand how moral beliefs as well as actions formulate and operate within individuals and societies, it is imperative that a general definition of morality is laid out. Morality, then, can be defined as ones principles regarding what is right and wrong, good or bad. Although an individual may hold moral beliefs, it is not always the case that moral actions follow. Therefore, in this essay I aim to provide an explanation that clarifies the two and in doing so I also hope to further the notion that one’s moral framework is a product of all three factors; nature, nurture, and free will. The first part of this essay will flush out what exactly morality it and how it manifests similarly across individuals and differently across individuals. Contrariwise, I will then explain how morality manifests similarly across societies and differently across societies. Alongside presenting the information in this order, I will trace morality back to primordial times to showcase how morality has evolved and developed since then, not only from a nature-based standpoint, but also from a
In John Ludwig Mackie’s book Inventing Right and Wrong, he claims that “in making moral judgments we are pointing to something objectively prescriptive, but that these judgments are all false”. By saying this, he supports his main point that there are no objective values. However, John McDowell will be against Mackie’s argument, because he suggests that moral values are secondary qualities which can be objective. I hold the same viewpoint as McDowell’s. In this essay, I will firstly explain Mackie’s argument, then illustrate McDowell’s objections, and finally explore some potential responses by Mackie.
In our society today, we are mostly challenged by two questions: ‘is it right to do this or that? And ‘how should I be living in society?’(Bessant, 2009). Similar questions were greatly discussed in the history by our ancestors in their philosophical discussions. The most ancient and long-lasting literature on moral principles and ethics were described by Greek philosopher Aristotle. He had an excellent command on various subjects ranging from sciences to mathematics and philosophy. He was also a student of a famous philosopher. His most important study on ethics, personal morality and virtues is ‘The Nicomachean Ethics’, which has been greatly influencing works of literature in ethics and heavily read for centuries, is believed to be
Dwelling in the deepest recesses of the mind, hidden in the various cortexes of the brain, the fundamental nature of every human lurks seeping into the actions of the individual. Can morality ever dictate a society? The individual contradicts the group and morals become subjective. Morals form ethics, ethics form laws, but all must have nearly universal agreement in order to be validated. Due to this unavoidable variation of an individual’s morals the necessary consensus of morals prevents the establishment of a true moral based society.
Judith Thomson presents us with two cases that argue for the same concept that, is killing one person to avoid the death of five moral or does this make the act of killing to save lives morally permissible? One case consists of a trolley that already has a pre-determined fate of a death occurring. The driver can both crash and continue to kill five people, or change the route to only kill one person instead. The case of the surgeon has the same premise and issues, but fate and morality has a much larger presence. The surgeon has five patients all in need of a specific organ and if they do not obtain these organs they will die. A healthy visitor walks in and it is proposed that the surgeon could kill the healthy individual,
People from all walks of life face many ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas have consequences. Our worldview determines how we deal with these dilemmas, and guides us to the right decisions. In this essay, I will examine an ethical issues through my Christian worldview. I will also present other viewpoints, and compare them to mine.
”(112) Our determination of what beliefs are true and false comes from already-held opinions. The reciting of these opinions as well as our moral views shows no indication of veracity in moral objectivity. Shafer-Landau’s reasoning leads to the ultimate question. What evidence is true and
Everyone has been led to believe that all lives are equal, and they are however, in terms of monetary value, lives are not equal. Aside the ethics about assigning value to the live it is still done. The justice system tries to resolve this loss by using unjust means. Life should not be given a value in any sort of currency, it is is not right as there is no way to put a price on something as priceless as life. Even if the life of a person is affected by an illness, their worth should not be decreased. All lives are equal, some people need more help than others and it should be given if and when deserve such help. The value of life has been contemplated throughout history, such as Shakespeare's (1599) play, hamlet; in which Hamlet’s
Throughout history morality has been a topic of intense debate. Innumerable thinkers have devoted immense amounts of time and energy to the formulation of various ethical theories intended to assist humans in their daily lives. These theories set out guidelines which help to determine the rightness or wrongness of any given action and can therefore illuminate which choice would be morally beneficial. And while many of these theories differ substantially, most have at least one common underlying principle, namely that humans deserve to be treated with a certain level of respect. This idea comes from the belief that all humans have interests which are significant enough to be considered, hence no one should impede another
When people hear the term “ethics,” most of their minds turn to dilemmas discussed by figures such as Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, Aristotle, and other famous philosophers. These men debated what is considered to be morally good and how a person can become ethical. Operating under normative ethics, these philosophers did not question whether or not ethics even existed, but rather if they exist, what are they? The branch of ethics that questions the foundation of ethics and morality is metaethics. There are three standpoints when debating metaethics: moral realism, moral relativism, and moral skepticism. I will be discussing my argument for moral realism and contend that moral relativism and skepticism are inaccurate. I will prove the
The question of what constitutes morality is often asked by philosophers. One might wonder why morality is so important, or why many of us trouble ourselves over determining which actions are moral actions. Mill has given an account of the driving force behind our questionings of morality. He calls this driving force “Conscience,” and from this “mass of feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates our standard of right,” we have derived our concept of morality (Mill 496). Some people may practice moral thought more often than others, and some people may give no thought to morality at all. However, morality is nevertheless a possibility of human nature, and a
When conflicts such as moral contradictions and inconsistencies arise, conversations including ethics and moral reasoning is the only way to solve these inconsistencies. Those who are genuine devotees of a certain religion may question if their religion’s moral instructions make sense according to one another. In these distinct cases, intelligent resolution of the claims can only be sorted out by putting in place an unbiased standard that can classify the competing viewpoints. This is where ethics comes in as the neutrality in the form of critical thinking, proficient arguments, and careful analysis.
Some life is worth more than others. The value of human life can be determined by your life choices, wealth, impact on the world, age, and who you are. It's possible to put a value and price on someone's life. Depending on who you are some people are a family member to you is worth more then some person you’ve hardy known. It