Comparing Utilitarianism, Deontology And Virtue

Out of the three theories that we looked at the second half of the semester, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue, I think the virtue theory is the most accurate of them all. The theory says a person is determined good or bad based on their character. I think that is most accurate because if a person is constantly acting badly, then they would be considered a bad person. If a person is constantly acting good, then they will be considered a good person. Looking at the other two theories, utilitarianism doesn’t seem wrong to me, but it isn’t very accurate. Deontology theory does not seem accurate to me at all. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense when I think about it. Therefore, of the three theories, the virtue theory seems most accurate
to me. The utilitarianism theory says the actions of a person are determined good or bad based on the results in the end. This is accurate because if someone shows bad actions all the time, then we cannot think they are a good person. If they are showing good actions all the time, then we cannot think they are a bad person. It would be very hard to think someone is good if their actions are almost always hurting people or bring people pain. It would be almost impossible to think they are a good person, unless you have an extremely open mind. Me personally, would not think they are a good person in the slightest. This just does not consider the intentions someone my have. Not all actions are what someone may have intended so we have to consider them also. Actions are very important, but intentions are important also. We cannot only consider one without the other. There is one problem that I see with this theory. This theory is only considering the results of the actions, but they are not considering the intentions someone may have. If someone had the intentions to rob a bank and kill people, but the police find out before they commit the actions, then they would still be a good person according to this theory. Although, they would be put in jail for having the intentions of committing this crime. This theory wouldn’t consider the person bad because he hadn’t done anything yet. He only had the intentions so he didn’t so anything wrong yet. I think that is the only problem with this theory because he would be a bad person due to his intentions even though this theory says otherwise. The intentions should also be taken into consideration because not everything happens as intended, so we cannot base if someone is good or bad only on their actions without considering their intentions as well.
The deontology theory says the intentions are made right or wrong based on how they go with the moral laws. I do not think that is wring because not everything works that way and not everyone has the same moral laws. The moral laws vary from person to person, so it is hard to determine of something is good or bad. My moral laws could be different from everyone else in the world because no two minds think alike. That means we would have to choose someone to determine what would be right or wrong. I do think that is right since everyone is different. Also, we may break the moral laws without intending to. We may mean to follow the moral laws, but it does not work out that way. In that situation, how would we determine if that was good or bad? It would be difficult to decide that since they had the intentions to follow the moral laws, but was not able to. This theory just never made much sense to me. I first did not understand it when I was reading it, then reading other’s people’s interpretations on the theory just made it seem like it wasn’t a well thought out theory.
Thoughts on not being able to consider the consequences of our actions doesn’t make sense. We should be able to consider the consequences because that could change the outcome of the situation. If people are to consider the consequences of their actions, it could prevent them from doing something bad in the first place. If someone plans on racing someone on the streets, there is the possibility of an accident happening and people getting seriously hurt. If those people consider that, then it could prevent them from racing in the first place then nobody gets hurt.
I think judging people based on their intentions before getting to know the person shouldn’t be happening.
We should not be judging people at all before getting to know them. We could be judging someone and be deciding that we do not what them in our life, and that shouldn’t have happened because we judged them too early. We also cannot only judge people based on their intentions because intentions are not always what happen in the end. Intentions are important, but actions are important also. We cannot judge a person only on their intentions because their actions might not end up being what they intended to
happen.
The Virtue theory says a person is determined good or bad based on their character.
This seems most accurate to me because if I see a person almost always acting badly, then I would consider them a bad person. If they are almost always acting good, then I would consider them a good person. This theory seems most logical to me from the three. There is no way to view a person good if their actions are bad. It is like saying a bully is still a nice person. No, the bully is not a good person and nobody would view them that way. If the person was a true good person, then they wouldn’t be acting badly. If the person was a true bad person, then they wouldn’t act good a very much. Although, one bad act does not make a good person bad and one good act does not make a bad person good.
My thoughts on judging a person’s character are we should wait until we know the person. We cannot judge a person before meeting and getting to know them because then we would be judging them prematurely. If we wait until we know the person, then we will know how they normally act and why they do what they do. Then we can judge them based on the things they do. The way a person acts can say a lot about their character. If they are acting badly most of the time, then we can judge their character as bad. If they are acting in a good way most of the time, then we can judge them as a good
person.
Although, I do not think we can truly know a person’s character because we do not know what all a person has been through. There are thinks that happen to us that make us how we are and we will never know what happens to other people. We would have to experience the same things that person did and know how they interpreted it to know the person’s character. We will never be able to truly know someone because we cannot experience the same things they did to know what made them who they are and why they do things the way they do. If we try to know someone, they might not tell us everything that goes on in their lives because they are ashamed of it. Therefore, we cannot truly know a person’s character.
We should respond calmly to people who are acting out of character because they are not acting as they usually do. We should try to avoid acting angry towards people who are acting out of character because that could make them act even more different than usual. Everybody has their bad days and there are things that can occur to put us in a bad mood. We should be considerate to other people who are acting differently because we do the same thing. I wouldn’t want someone getting angry with me because I am acting different than normal. We all have our bad days and we cannot penalize someone for having one of theirs, so we should recognize that someone is acting differently and act calmly towards them to try and make their day better.
To conclude, I think the virtue theory is the most accurate theory of them all. The utilitarianism would be the next one that seems correct to me, but the deontology does not seem correct or accurate to me at all. It seems most accurate to view people as good if they are acting good, and to view someone as bad if they are acting badly. We shouldn’t be judging people based on their intentions alone or actions alone like the deontology theory says. If we only consider the intentions of someone, then we wouldn’t know what would actually happen because intentions are not always when happens in the end. If we only consider the actions of a person and not their intentions as well, then we may judge the person incorrectly because not all actions are what were intended. If someone wants to be a good person, then most of their acts will be good and bring people happiness. If someone wants to be bad, then most of their acts will be bad and bring people pain and sadness.