For a conscientious observer, this double standard should seriously cause him to question the ability of a consequentialist perspective to prescribe satisfactory moral understanding and guidance. By accommodating an agent’s moral feelings only when they are in accord with utility is indicative of a deeper failure to recognize that such feelings are often expressions of the agent’s own projects and commitments. Thus, to achieve an objective standard of right action, utilitarianism ultimately sacrifices the agent’s integrity by making right action irrelevant to those projects and commitments. The first part of my exposition focuses on what Williams sees as the reason for the popularity of consequentialist ethical theories, which is rooted in an illicit jump from thinking about moral kinds of actions to thinking about moral degrees of outcomes. The rest of my exposition explains how this jump directly leads to the
In other words, the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed. (4) The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect. In forming this decision many factors must be weighed and compared, with care and prudence proportionate to the importance of the case. Thus, an effect that benefits or harms society generally has more … DOUBLE EFFECT, PRINCIPLE OF The Principle of Double Effect is a rule of conduct frequently used in moral theology to determine when a person may lawfully perform an action from which two effects will follow, one bad and the other good.
Thomas Nagel’s “Moral Luck” Nagel begins his argument by explaining the problem with moral judgment upon individuals is that it does not take into consideration the actions that are not within one’s control, or is not their fault. That when we place the moral judgment upon a person as an object, independent of the external forces involved, and whether the outcome is good or bad, this would be considered ‘moral luck’. This brings in to question the validity of any moral judgment, because the more one looks into the given situation and what factors were outside the control of the person being judged, the more one sees that any moral responsibility is diminished. And with this statement, the addition that even our system of belief that we use to make these moral judgments is also largely based upon things, internal and external, that are beyond our control. Nagel’s basic thesis of this issue
Another weakness is the consequences, in some situations when consequences are too severe that many think it is better to break a rule than allow awful thing to happen. The theory is too rigid, sometimes the consequences can change the rightness or a wrongness of an action, but in this theory the person is judged on the action which can be unfair. It’s inflexible as you should be able to break a rule if the individual’s circumstances warrant it. There is no consideration to human emotion, there are situation where individuals break rules because of emotions, for example if a person is scared they may lie to protect themselves which in Kant’s eyes this would be morally wrong. The theory is a priori, some claim we out our duty a priori but it is also argued we need to refer to experience to work out what is right.
Is Torture Morally Justifiable? Abstract This paper explores the idea that torture is sometimes morally justifiable to achieve a goal in extreme circumstances, although it does not support the notion that torture should be legalized or otherwise institutionalized. I start by describing what torture is and how its utility may be established. I then consider a case study, and examine it to determine how torture can be morally permissible in extreme circumstances. Is Torture Morally Justifiable?
A debated topic in moral theory is the debate of the rightness of actions. In some cases, such as agent-based virtue ethics, intent of the action is the determining factor. In other cases, the outcomes of actions are the determining factor. Both of these seem intuitively possible, but which is correct? It seems that only focusing on the final outcome may lead to morally wrong actions.
I do think Tobias Wolff is a monster. I have many reasons to support my opinion on him being a monster. My main reason is because he had access to weapons and the lack of supervision as a child, which left him on his own to partake in senseless acts of violence. The joy of pointing the rifle at innocent civilians gave him some type of satisfaction a normal person wouldn’t receive. Starting with his action to take aim at innocent pedestrians walking by, also pretending to fire shots at them.
As such, ethical situationalism denies absolute universal moral principles (Fieser and Pojman 43). Here, it is more about adapting and adhering to whatever is demanded by the situation. In other words, ethical situationalism asserts that changing situations may require changing ethical principles. From this we can gather that in different situations, it is possible for moral principles to “outweigh” other moral principles (i.e. one principle has the potential for being more “right” or “better than”, or even “worse than” another principle in any given
Kant however, holds many different views than Hume, stating that rules are the basis of morality. This differs from Hume’s idea that our passions and emotions ultimately govern our moral decisions and that reason alone does not provide a motive to act morally. To better understand Hume’s ethical theories, it is important to understand his description and distinctions of cause and effect. According to Hume, our belief that events are causally related is meanly a habit acquired by experience. That is, having observed the regularity with which events of particular sorts occur together, we form the association of ideas that produce the habit of expecting the effect whenever we experience the cause.
On the one hand, one’s prima facie obligation to obey the law remains intact where its injustice is relatively minor and it would be unfair to others if one disregarded the law. On the other hand, a gravely unjust law may provide one with an overriding all-things-considered reason to disobey the law. The [maxim ‘an unjust law is not a law’], then, does not deny the significance of the law’s positivity. Rather, it expresses the conditional nature of the complex relations that hold between moral obligations and the positive law.’ (Ibid. )” (Anon 2011) ------------------------------------------------- Briefly trace the development of natural law theories from their origins in Greek and Roman thought to the birth of Modernity, and in particular the distinction (if any) drawn by theorists between moral validity and systemic validity, and then discuss whether George’s defense of this maxim meets the positivist critique both theoretically and practically.