I have hard time to believe in such things when the most common proclamation of every other criminal is to claim their innocence. Nonetheless, Thoreau leads us to the point, where he states that it is the responsibility, or even a duty, of every citizen to disobey a law which he does not believe to be right or just. He sees it as an obligation not to participate in such evil doings and also stand or rebel against it. He takes the course of action as to
Rawls first addresses the problem of legitimacy questioning how free and equal citizens with irreconcilable conceptions of what is good would be able to justify the distribution of benefits and burdens to one another. In order to solve this problem, Rawls relies on free agreement amongst citizens, thus a conception of justice that all members of a society can agree to on equal terms (Weinar, 2012:4). Secondly, in order to ensure a stable society, the conception of justice must rest on an overlapping consensus amongst citizens – thus individuals will support the same basic law of society for contrasting reasons which are directly related to each one’s own moral beliefs. The achievement of stability in a society, according to Rawls, is directly related to how close a society is to achieving ‘reflective equilibrium’ – in ‘reflective equilibrium’ all individual beliefs held members in a society cohere perfectly with one another, for example my political judgements would support my general political convictions which would in turn support my abstract beliefs about myself and my world. – although this is unattainable, it can be used as a method for justifying our beliefs (Weinar,
If helping a person would prevent your own self-interest, this would seem to make it morally permissible for a person to perform harm to others in situations where their self-interest would benefit from the action. But, an egoistic must act with one’s own eternal self-interest, therefore they are not just individuals who believe that they should always do what they like when they like because acting in accordance with this would not necessarily benefit the person in the long term. When we say that a person should do something, we are also implying is that they are capable of doing the action, but we cannot expect people to do things that they cannot do. Ethical egoism comes in two forms and they are act-egoism and rule-egoism. Act-egoism is the
This fear forbids the oppressed from reacting on their situation somewhat because they have embraced guidelines set by their oppressors. Freire asserts that “Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly” The oppressed are not willing to do anything as they have become used to the domination structure of the oppressors. For the oppressed to overcome this oppression they must work in unity. Freire then points out the fact that those oppressed “prefer the security of conformity” over doing what is needed to do away with oppression and to attain liberation.
Although, stealing is against the law - he had correct intentions, which he will prove as he defends himself to Hobbes and Locke. Thomas Hobbes removes the foundation of ethics and states that politics determines the common good, unlike his predecessors Plato and Aristotle. He determines that the concept of right or wrong and that society needs a sovereign to establish manner. Hood lives in the civil state where the sovereign has deemed it wrong to steal. This causes Hobbes to believe Hood followed a wrongdoing; disobeying the sovereign.
Since Mill argues that the government ought to play no role in our lives (unless we are harming others), we must be able to properly govern ourselves in order for society to continue to function. We can only effectively govern ourselves if we are capable of thinking critically and for ourselves, which can only be done through freedom of thought and expression. Once we are able to self-govern, we will be forced to observe things, to reason with ourselves and others, and to make decisions based on those reasons. These are all ways in which we perfect certain faculties, such as the ability to make judgements, rationales, and keen observations. Perfecting these faculties is how individuals maximize
But first we have to understand: what egoism is theory?. As defined by Klikauer (2012) “the core of moral selfishness is constructed by and around the individual.” Otherwise, according to Hinman (2007) egoism theory “tells us that we should always act in our own self-interest” and “the wrongness or rightnes of acts depends on their consequences.” However, the philosopher Rachels (n.d) stated that the action satisfying ethical egoism theory is right if it is done in legal, moral ways and not harmful to others , if not, that action will be considered to be wrong and those who acted in wrong ways will get shunned or punished by others. Besides, right actions will help to increase self-interests but wrong actions cause the decrease self-interests (Hinman, 2007) In this case, Samsung was motived to pursue their self - interest by using money to exchange for the political support from the president and the national’s pension fund even when the corporation probably understood that their actions were illegal and unethical. In addition, the seed of the scandal is the merger mentioned above. The leaders of Samsung had been blindfolded by its benefits , the merger helped Samsung increase its power, share value on stock and more advantage compared to other competitors.
Thoreau creates a metaphor where injustice impacts a government machine. First, he writes that citizens can let the government or machine try to fix itself or try to find the injustice within itself, “…but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine” (Thoreau, 1847, p. 134). Thoreau identifies that ultimately if citizens want change from injustice, citizens must disobey. The active pursuit of injustice and constant disobedience affects change within the government.
Utilitarianism Ethics is False The utilitarian approach to ethics builds on the premise that the end justifies the means. It asserts that social actions such as punishment are ethical as long as they make society a better place. According to utilitarianism, society must take all actions possible to stamp out antisocial acts such as crimes. Hence, a criminal is punished to rid society of his acts. However, in reality, it is almost impossible for society to completely wipe out crime through punishment.
Austin uses utilitarianism to form the basis of his theory which in turn lay down the foundation of modern positive law. He felt that the law should not be impacted by morals and we should therefore keep law and morality separate. He believed that when judging laws on a moral basis, it caused a subjective standpoint and could potentially lead to anarchy. To avoid the subjective approach that may be achieved by applying other theories – such as the neutral theory – positive law provides an objective standard and a legal norm which can be applied impartially to all individuals. The