Bus Ethics

Introduction
Justice is the importance of an individual or society having rights, equality and fairness. Fracking in the Karoo has damaged the environment and contaminated the water sources which have led to the violation of people rights (du Toit, 2011).
In order to come to a moral decision whether fracking in the Karoo is or is not desirable I studied Mill’s utilitarian theory of justice which helped me understand that actions must be made to maximize the overall happiness of the individuals that were experiencing the fracking. I explained the Mill’s theory, the advantages and disadvantages as well as how it is applied in the fracking case.
Body
John Stuart Mill was a Utilitarian who believed that justice was a subset of morality and he claims that “Justice implies something which is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right”(Gray, 2011). He said that justice is not a moral standard and to determine justice we must look at the overall happiness of that individual. Mills argued that both positive rights and negative rights existed which helped individuals have a greater equality and self well being. Positive rights being education, food, housing and medical support. Negative rights were freedom of speech and to be allowed to follow any religion we desired.
There are two arguments about the principles of justice according to Mill. The first principle looks at what is an acceptable action that someone should receive and the second principle is what should be an acceptable action that society should give (Gray, 2011).
Utilitarian’s are the people that seem to see no difference between justice and morality. According to Utilitarian’s, morality and justice have similar qualities but they don’t see either one having more importance or a higher priority than the other. Most of the utilitarian ideas and beliefs link morality to economic distribution, the law and to politics. However utilitarianism can’t tell individuals which economic system will end up producing the most happiness and maximizing welfare.
Utilitarian’s believe in maximizing utility which is the strive towards the best possible balance of good and bad consequences. Utilitarianism is the theory that has the ability to predict the consequences of a certain actions and the beliefs are that the decision that creates the greatest benefit for the most people is the decision that is ethically and morally correct. It is an action of an individual or society that brings more happiness and pleasure for more people over a longer period of time.
There are two different types of utilitarianism. The first is act utilitarianism which is the rightness of a specific action depends on the consequences of that action. A cost-benefit analysis is a good example of act utilitarianism in which the positives of the action are weighed up against the negatives. The second type of utilitarianism is rule utilitarianism which states that an action needs to follow is universal rule which should have good consequences if a majority of people followed it. This rule must maximize utility.
The first weak point of Mill’s utilitarian theory of justice is that it is too simple and tends to ignore moral principles. Other philosophers and theories state that overall happiness is not the most relevant moral principle. The second drawback of utilitarianism is that it tends to be too demanding as promoting happiness can be too difficult. The last week point is that utilitarianism fails to be respectful as it is wrong to perform an action and hurt someone even if it promotes more happiness and good.
Fracking in the Karoo is a hazardous procedure that damages the environment with huge, irreparable scars as well as creates health hazards to humans and livestock. Fracking involves the extraction of shale gas which is trapped in underground rock formations (du Toit, 2011). Millions of liters of water are used in the fracking process which only adds to South Africa’s water problems especially in areas such as the Karoo where water levels are considerably low.
In order to apply Mills utilitarian theory of justice it is important to identify what rights maximize happiness and then figure out if any of those rights are being abused in a specific situation. The first utilitarianism right is that individuals have a right to property. Individuals have many needs and having property is very important in facilitating those needs. Humans need food, water and shelter and if these needs are taken away from them then they experience a decrease in happiness and overall welfare. Even if the people of the Karoo had agreed with fracking their property rights were still violated because no one would agree with the techniques used by Shell and the consequences they would experience. Shell didn’t know where they were going to get the huge volumes of water from and they refused to comment on the chemicals used in the fracking process as well as how much of it remains underground.
The second utilitarianism right is the right to social welfare which states that everyone has a right to a standard of living which is acceptable to the health and well being of that individual. These rights include food, housing and medical aid. Due to the fracking process, the people of the Karoo had their social welfare rights violated as they have experienced undrinkable water that is flammable and contaminated with oil and methane which leads to them suffering from cancers and tumors (Gray, 2011). Many farmers live in the Karoo and depend heavily on livestock and crops which die due to the poison in the water.
However, it is important to look at fracking from a cost-benefit perspective. People need to realize that the dangers of fracking such as water contamination and environmental destruction are not greater than the much needed benefits that fracking creates like oil and gas. The main benefits of fracking are that it creates a lot more energy and wealth. Due to climate change more countries are focusing on other energy sources such as wind, wave and solar. The shale gas that fracking produces burns 50% cleaner than coal which is ideal for the requirements of climate change. Since fracking causes an increase in wealth South Africa will be able to reduce poverty significantly by 2015 and reach its carbon emission reduction goal by 2020 (Mintz, 2011).
Conclusion
Fracking is a destructive process and according to Mill’s theory of justice, fracking doesn’t bring overall happiness to the individuals of the Karoo. Peoples rights had been violated due to the environmental damage and water contamination that fracking caused. Therefore by studying Mill’s utilitarian theory of justice I have made a moral decision that fracking in the Karoo should not be allowed as it doesn’t bring justice and an overall happiness to the society of the Karoo.