Ethics

After reading the articles about how we make ethical choices, it’s harder for me to think about my preference than it was for free will versus determinism.  I definitely understand how the three major classic category positions overlap, especially when I think about what my default reasoning is behind my own ethical decisions.

I think the most sensible may be consequentialist ethics.  Like the common saying “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” this theory focuses on the end results of our actions.  The idea that “an act is morally right if the end results are beneficial” makes sense to me.  I believe the reasoning behind an action and the actual outcome may differ, such as when one does the right things for the wrong reasons, or vice versa.  However, despite this, the consequentialist stance seems most logical, and more black-and-white than shades of gray.  Although shades of gray when it comes to morals must be taken into consideration, this is why I believe consequentialist ethics is the most “sensible” category.  It’s a happy medium between the strictly rule-based or virtues-based ethics.  It believes that looking at an action’s end results assumes the best final product.  By anticipating the consequences of our actions, we are forced to think first and not be impulsive, and try to make sure that the good outweighs the bad.

The different forms of consequentialist ethics make this debate more in-depth.  Utilitarianism is broad and makes sense to me.  The “greatest good to the greatest number of people” is a general and well agreed-upon notion for deciding whether a decision is morally right or wrong.  Ethical altruism makes sense as well, but seems almost unnecessarily selfless.  While its altruism is admirable, I don’t think that a negative outcome for the agent of the act is what makes the act good.  Finally, ethical egoism, or the social contract theory, is my least favorite of the three.  Regardless of the explanations in the reading, I can’t help but see it as selfish.  We should take others into consideration when acting.  If others are hurt in the process of doing what’s best for oneself, I can’t necessarily agree that what they did was morally right.

The strategy I think I use most frequently is probably virtue ethics, by looking at my personal habits of character.  Most of my morals come from what I was taught by my parents and from my beliefs based on my Christian faith.  Because of this, I like the idea of the golden mean, living life in balance.  I agree that too much or too little of any virtue can be a bad thing, but try to abide to the virtues in the examples in the reading.  The Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love, which we’re told partially came from the Greek virtues of wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice, are what I build my life and actions around.  My default, automatic response to decision-making seems to come from who I want to be as a person and what my personal virtues are, what standards I hold myself to.

Finally, duty-based ethics would be the classic category I relate to the least.  Although I tend to follow rules and laws pretty strictly, I don’t think that authorities are necessarily always right, especially if they condone something that conflicts with my values.  The first thing that this category made me think of was the character Javer from Les Mis.  His death was caused by the confliction he felt after the realization that the rules he’d spent his life enforcing didn’t match up with what he believed was right.  I particularly agree with deontology.  The idea that I shouldn’t analyze the reasons behind what is right and wrong, because it has already been deemed as such, makes me feel like a mindless citizen who is made to follow rules, not think for themselves.  I do, however, like John Locke’s Rights Theory.  Like in the example, I believe no one should be able to harm another person’s right to life, freedom, etc.

All in all, each category has points that I agree and disagree with, and I definitely use overlapping versions of each to make my own decisions.  However, consequentialist ethics seems to make the most logical sense, while I believe I base my own choices on virtue ethics.