But a drawback would be that you wouldn't be living for goodness or for a deity, you would be living for yourself and this could seem selfish to some. But if you are really doing things that you feel are truly right, then it shouldn't seem selfish. I know that people don't always choose the right decision in life though. That would be
While Ethical Naturalists believe it holds great importance as it can convey facts and help us to understand ethical theories, there are those who strongly disagree with this. For example Intuitionists, such as Moore, believe that our intuition is more useful when wanting to know how to act morally than knowing the definitions of ethical terms. Although Non-Cognitive theories disagree with the factual content of ethical statements, it is clear that they still see some significance in ethical language. However rather than seeing it as facts, they accept that morality is subjective and suggest that the importance of ethical language is provided by the emotions conveyed in the phrases used. Perhaps more so than Emotivists, Prescriptivists see ethical language as fairly meaningful.
However, token economy has issues, such as that you could argue that you are taking away patient’s basic rights to use as rewards. Another criticism which shows why token economy may not be and appropriate and effective therapy is that it has low ecological validity; it may not transfer into the real world. Once patients are away from institutions, they often discarded desirable behavior as there are no longer any rewards to reinforce it. Another disadvantage is the ethical issues surrounding the use of behavioral therapy. It could be argued it doesn't really help the patient; it just makes their behavior more acceptable to others.
The principle of utility also advocates that, the correctness or incorrectness of a deed is dependent on the ability for the action to lead to joy or sadness. If an action aims at supporting pleasure and preventing pain, then it rhymes to this principle, and it is morally right. On the contrary, if it does not aim at promoting happiness or preventing pain, then it does not match to the principle of utility, and it is morally incorrect. This principle is argued to be the morally correct principle of deeds at all situations. The principle of utility continually states that morally right actions produce happiness for all the affected people whose concerns are involved in the picture.
Naturalists would argue that moral values can indeed be derived from facts by employing what is morally “good” as an empirical rather than deontological property to it. By assigning moral properties to actions and motives, we are able to decide what is good if that property is seen to be present in the action. For example, for a utilitarian, it could be argued that donating money to the less fortunate is good because it causes happiness for a great number of people to the cost of only one person, not coerced into doing so. Therefore if the view is that of a libertarian moral realist, the act of donating money to the less fortunate is said to be good because as a result of human nature, what is good is equal to what is conducive to the happiness of the greatest number of individuals. Likewise, as proposed by the virtue theorist Foot, ethical judgments
Contentment should be out of fullness and not laziness. Even though philosophers like Plato disagree with this statement (especially in Republic VII), other people may disagree which means that there really is no true answer. The people that agree with this statement however, would have not encountered enlightenment and are therefore less important that philosophers that have which makes this statement completely false in one’s
In the hard determinist’s judgement, this feeling of freedom is an illusion. (Pereboom, 2009:324). Another argument against hard determinism would be if it were true we could not be accounted for when it comes to our actions, therefore we could do a morally wrong act and if it was determined then we would could not to blame, we did not have the free will to do that act it was determined to be done anyway. Also if we do a morally good act should we be praised for this? Hard determinists would say that it was not our free will that chose us to do this good act we were determined to do it anyway.
Therefore people may think what they're doing is right in their certain situation but in reality they are actually in the wrong. Also this conveys there is no convincing reason as to why people should be good as relativist thinker Mackie says there are no objective values rightness and wrongness do not exist in the world. alternatively this statement proposes that relativist have not defined what is right or wrong so therefore the relativist theory cannot provide a convincing reason as to why people should be good because they do not have a definition at all of what is right or wrong and they clearly recognise that there are different perspectives of what is right or wrong. No two people may agree on judgement, Sumner a cultural relativist suggests that ancestors have passed down traditions and they are just an experience of their culture. This conveys that there is no convincing reason as to why people should be good because if there cultural says they should do something that is morally wrong, for example killing someone to use them as a sacrifice then in their eyes they are not doing anything wrong they are just following their culture and it doesn't convince them to be good.
Of the remaining criteria we might consider, only sentience―the capacity of a being to experience things like pleasure and pain―is a plausible criterion of moral importance. Singer argues for this in two ways. First, he argues, by example, that the other criteria are bad, because (again) they will exclude people who we think ought not be excluded. For instance, we don't really think that it would be permissible to disregard the well-being of someone who has much lower intelligence than average, so we can't possibly think that intelligence is a suitable criterion for moral consideration. Second, he argues that it is only by virtue of something being sentient that it can be said to have interests at all, so this places sentience in a different category than the other criteria: "The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way" (175).
Mills vs. Rawls John Stuart Mill’s view on moral decisions rests on the utility associated with an action’s happiness. Mill’s primary belief in the “Greatest Happiness Theory” which can also be called Utilitarianism is that those actions are desirable and right if they tend to promote happiness and pleasure and discourage pain. Mill says that all other things may be valued either for the amount of pleasure they involve, or for how influential they are in leading to pleasure. Human beings experience pleasures natural only to themselves, that animals do not have the capabilities of understanding or experiencing. These “higher” pleasures are higher in quality, but lesser in quantity.