Example Of Consequentialism Essay

Ethical theories are ways of telling right from wrong and include guidelines of how to live and act in an ethical way. For example when faced with a difficult situation in your life, you can use ethical theories to assist you in making the right decision. One key theory is consequentialism, which says that an individual’s correct moral response is related to the outcome/ consequence of the act and not its intentions/ motives. Early writers on this theory were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, a modern writer is Peter Singer. For example Brenda Grey has asked for the asthma specialist to visit her weekly, and to decide if this is necessary the professionals involved have to look at how it would affect her wellbeing. This is done by questioning

The Terri Schiavo case was a huge start of the “Right to Die” movement, the underlying cause of Schiavo’s collapse was never given a diagnosis. Consequentialist moral theories focus on how much good can result from an action. Non Consequentialist moral theories or Deontological theories, consider not the consequences of an action but whether they fulfill a duty. Some theories that can be used include utilitarianism, Kant’s ethics and natural law theory. Being aware of the case already, I believe there should be some sort of law that gives doctors to comply with the wishes of the patient if they are in a lot of distress.

Abortion can be categorized as both a legal, and ethical issue. Being such a controversial topic some might argue that abortion should be considered murder, while others simply see it as a way to get rid of a problem. Religion plays a large part in the ethical issue of abortion, just like with any other ethical problem, religion plays a large part of the decisions we make in everyday life. Keeping this in mind we can say religion, and a person’s ethical view of life plays a large part in the decision of having an abortion. In this paper I will discuss the ethical views on abortion, Marquis’s argument, and look at the different ethical views from different points of views on the topic.

Consequentialism is based more around the consequence and final result of the actions. In our text book, Ethical Reasoning, it states that in consequentialism, “consequences count, not motives or intentions” (Pence, 2011). Non-consequentialism is based around the intention of one’s doing, regardless of the consequences. A particular action may be good for a business but not good for society or ones health. An example of this would be pharmaceutical companies raising the cost for medicine, this cause many patients to suffer or not be able to afford the medication they need. When a person is going to make a moral decision based on consequentialism, he or she first look at the good and bad possible consequences of the action, then determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad.

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that Philippa Foot’s objection, raised to her own argument against utilitarianism, is correct. Her initial thesis is that benevolence, while the foundation of utilitarianism, is an internal end of morality, rather than the ultimate end of morality. The possible objection to this that there must be some overarching reason behind morality, which must imply a form of consequentialism. The response she offers is that there should be some other form of morality, which is a weak argument, as it does not provide an alternate conception of morality itself.

Moral theories are theories that help us distinguish between a right or a wrong action. Adequate moral theories help us understand that what we should or shouldn’t do in certain situations. Two of the most famous moral theories are Utilitarianism and Kantianism. According to Utilitarianism, an action is right if only if it out of all the other action gives out the maximum utility. In oppose to that, Kantianism says that an action is right if and only if, in performing that action, the person does not treat anyone as a mean and treats everyone as an end in itself.

These issues are really serious problems which are against ethically methods. For example, according to the textbook, “Transcendental” leads people to think about basic rules of human experience, what good life is, what good behavior is and how we do tell right from wrong. I think consequentialism is always happened in the world. It means how good or bad on action is depends on its results. In the Sierra Leone situation, there were long civil war, and after this, some bad things happened. After that, many people were suffering by this war. Therefore, bad results are caused by before doing bad.

Decisions about right and wrong fill each and every day. Turmoil exists due to deciding if Deontology, where one acts based on the right motives, or if Utilitarianism, where one should act in a way that would produce the best results and consequences, should govern decisions and their morality. However, I believe Deontology, which is reason and duty based, serves as the superior way to dictate morality. In this paper, I will explain both the principles of Deontology and Utilitarianism, discuss the superior aspects of Deontology as compared to Utilitarianism, as well as grapple with objections to Deontology. While both ethical frameworks contain parts of ideologies that could be seen as valid, Kant’s theory on Deontology holistically remains

A current ethical debate in the world of healthcare is Savior siblings. A savior sibling is a child who is born to be genetically compatible with a sibling that is suffering from a life-threatening disease. The child is born to provide either organ or cell transplant, and/or blood transfusions for the ill sibling. The child is created through in vitro fertilization (IVF), once the embryo goes through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), it helps identify genetic defects within the embryos. This arises many ethic concerns for people, like whether or not savior siblings should be allowed, and how far would one go to save the sick child’s life. Each branch of Philosophy has their own view and opinions, that

It is a part of normative ethical theories and it means that the consequence of ones behavior is an ultimate mean for anyone to judge the rightness or wrongness of that behavior. So, from the perspective of a consequentialist an ethically right act is the one that will inherit good outcome or consequence. It usually explains the saying “the end justifies the means” which means that in order to achieve a goal, take any route which leads to achieving it.

Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory based on the idea that an action is moral if it causes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. The theory is concerned with predicted consequences or outcomes of a situation rather than focusing on what is done to get to the outcome. There are many forms of utilitarianism, having been introduced by Jeremy Bentham (act utilitarianism), and later being updated by scholars such as J.S. Mill (rule utilitarianism) and Peter Singer (preference utilitarianism). When referring to issues of business ethics, utilitarianism can allow companies to decide what to do in a given situation based on a simple calculation. Many people would agree that this idea of promoting goodness

Williams main objections to utilitarianism is that it points out that it may require us to do wrong. He reconciles ethical behavior with our feelings and emotional responses to moral problems.

Bernard Williams’ essay, A Critique of Utilitarianism, launches a rather scathing criticism of J. J. C. Smart’s, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian ethics. Even though Williams claims his essay is not a direct response to Smart’s paper, the manner in which he constantly refers to Smart’s work indicates that Smart’s version of Utilitarianism, referred to as act-Utilitarianism, is the main focus of Williams’ critique.

Throughout history many great philosophers have attempted to unravel the origins of virtues by developing moral theories of their own. This document is designed to provide the reader with an overview of some of the more popular theories concerning morals. Three of the most popular moral theories are… Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism. Though Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism differ in many ways, they also share similar fundamentals.

In the case of the death penalty, it has the added bonus in guaranteeing that the person would not offend again. Supporters of harsh punishments argue that the would-be criminal would consider the costs versus the benefits of committing a crime. If the costs outweigh the benefits, then it is assumed that he would stop what he is doing, effectively ‘deterred’. Furthermore, the usage of harsh punishments to effectively deter crime is ethically justified as it prevents more people from falling victim to crime. However it is extremely difficult to judge a punishment’s effectiveness based on its deterrence effect, consequently we must consider other variables that would entail a person to commit a crime. Motivation is a key factor; many criminals are motivated by desires, rage and desperation. It is very possible that criminals are not thinking rationally when committing a crime. In other words, the severity of a punishment is largely irrelevant when criminals are not thinking clearly at the time, the very fact that they committed the crime in the first place is already evident that they never considered the consequences. Therefore, it is untrue that harsher punishments are more