3 Ethical Theories

Ethics in philosophy has to do with what an individual or particular group feels is good or bad. Morality is concerned with the nature of right and wrong, whereas ethics is concerned with the nature of good and evil. Philosophers have been debating over the concepts of good and evil for thousands of years, and in those thousands of years many strange ideas have been formed. Of all those ideas on the nature of ethics and what is ultimately most good and bad, emerged three major philosophical theories on ethics. The three major theories on ethics are ethical egoism, utilitarianism, and deontology. In this paper I will compare and contrast all three and show why ethical egoism is strongest argument for basing your ethical code on.
The
Utilitarianism means that to act ethically is to act so as to bring about the greatest possible quantity of happiness or pleasure for the largest possible number of people. Utilitarianism only cares that the actions one takes produces the greatest benefits for the most amount people as possible. A Utilitarian does not care if the benefits of his or her actions are produced by lies or manipulation just as long as they serve the greatest good for as many people as possible. To figure out what a Utilitarian should do any given situation, they would first figure out all the different options that they have. Secondly they would determine all the possible benefits and faults for each option that they have. Lastly a Utilitarian would choose the course of action that provided the greatest benefit after all the faults and values are weighed. Ideally a Utilitarian would assign a value to everything he or she is weighing, whether that be a decision like going to the movies or not going, or whether you should let someone die or not. A Utilitarian would assign values and if the pros outweighed the cons, then they would have to do it. I have two main problems with Utilitarianism, one is that it is almost impossible to assign and compare values of certain benefits and harms. How do you assign a value to a human life and furthermore how would you compare something like money or fame, to life or time? What is the
Ethical egoism stems from psychological egoism which is the view that people are in fact motivated entirely and only by their self-interest. This is the descriptive claim and ethical egoism is the prescriptive version of that. It is the view that regardless of whether people are in fact motivated entirely and only by their own self-interest, they should only be motivated by this. There is an important difference between the two claims. Ethical egoism does not say that all humans are motivated by their own self-interest, it says that they ought to be, and I could not agree more. If people were motivated to make ethical decisions based on their own self-interest, it would take away from the complicated theories that people should weight their decisions and determine the greatest good for the most people. What about the greatest good for yourself, who is looking out for that. You is the answer. Now that doesn’t mean that you should go around being a dick to everyone, it means that whatever is important to you, is what you should try and protect. That could mean your family, friends and coworkers are all part of your self-interest. Their happiness is a direct correlation to your happiness. So if you were to be an ethical egoist, that does not mean that you are only looking out for yourself, but you are looking out for everyone that you love, because if they are happy and