Natural Law is an ethical theory that if you fulfil something’s natural purpose, then it is fulfilling its goal and therefore is right and just. Natural Law believes that natural order is determined by a supernatural power or being which we must follow. Natural Law was developed by Thomas Aquinas who was a Roman Catholic priest from Italy; he related Aristotle’s theory of Natural Law to Christian’s beliefs in God. Natural Law is a deontological and absolutist theory, where everything has a purpose. There are five primary precepts to Natural Law, Aquinas believed that these precepts came from God.
Can Your Code of Ethics Be Wrong? Lonna Shelton-Soward Liberty University Abstract In counseling, whether Secular or Christian based it is crucial to understand and practice ethical codes. Similarities and differences in the American Counseling Association (ACA) code of ethics and the American Association of Christian Counseling (AACC) code of ethics, aim to do no harm. In the AACC Code of Ethics it clearly states, “Christian counselors acknowledge that the first rule of professional-ministerial ethical conduct is: do no harm to those served.” (AACC, Section, ES1-100, p.9). Counselors advocate change at all levels to improve the quality of life for individuals or groups, while eliminating obstacles that make it difficult to receive proper services.
Do not forget either that rationalism did not involve the overcoming of religious thought; on the contrary, the notion of God was very important in the rationalist philosophical systems (Joachim, 2006). Descartes valued above all reason and believed that this ability was able to give us important content, while procedures that ensured its truth. The reason
doing whatever will have the best outcome in any situation. This is where situation ethics links to Utilitarianism looking for the best interests of everybody and not harming anyone. Another feature of Situation ethics are the six working principles, one of them is that love is always good, a quote from Fletcher "nothing itself in or itself except love" this quote shows that love is harmless and if everyone considers love for one another there is no harm in life. Another principle is love is the only means and if love is
St Paul believed the conscience was a moral guide, which is within and doesn’t need any rules or theories to be followed. St Pauls idea of the conscience is universal to everyone this means that you don’t have to be a christian to relate and use the conscience as a moral guide. St Paul uses Romans 2:15 “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts”. This supports St Paul’s idea that everyone has a conscience within as a moral guide. However it ma not always be best o use our conscience as our moral guide.
Like the Puritans, he planned to combat natural inclinations by building a life of strong moral preservation. While Franklin did not have as devoted a belief in God as the Puritans, he did believe in God and believed in the importance of good deeds and services. He also believed that all crimes were punishable, like the Puritans, who believed that God gave punishments to all wrongs. Franklin listed out virtues and sought to accomplish each in a specific order. His notion of virtues differed, however, from the Puritans who believed that being close to God was most virtuous and focused on reading scripture and prayers instead of being good citizens.
For example, one of the Ten Commandments ‘Thou shall not kill’ should not be broken and is applied to situations such as the death penalty or abortion. This links to the divine command theory. This is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that what is moral is determined by God and that to be moral is to follow his commands. This theory claims that morality is ultimately based on God and the right action is the one that God requires. The divine commands vary in religions but in the end, they all have in common that moral obligations depend on God.
Explain the theory of duty in Kantian Ethics (25 marks) Kantian ethics is an absolutist theory as Kant claimed what is morally ‘good’ is constant and unchanging. Because of this, it can be a universal concept applied in different societies and cultures with the idea that an action should only be performed for duty’s sake. His approach was deontological because the idea of right or wrong was based on the action rather than the consequence, he believed that this was the only rational basis for morality and could be proven objectively, independent from emotion and opinion. As humans we have the innate ability to reason, something which we gained prior to any sensory experience in this world. This is an idea which is absolute and according to Kant, the way we decide the morality of an action.
Next on the basis of James Rachel’s argument against ethical egoism will try to answer the question posed. This essay will also discuss the common sense view is the most appropriate way to act in most of the cases. Ethical Egoism is a normative theory, a theory which states how one should behave. It states that promotion of one’s own good is in accordance with morality. In other way we can state that it is always moral to promote self-interest and it is not moral not to promote it.
In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, he talks of "the principle of utility" but later prefers "the greatest happiness principle. "[4][5] Utilitarianism can be characterized as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It is a type of naturalism. [6] It can be contrasted with deontological ethics,[7] which does not regard the consequences of an act as a determinant of its moral worth; virtue ethics,[8] which primarily focuses on acts and habits leading to happiness; pragmatic ethics; as well as with ethical egoism and other varieties