Ethical Egoism, Kantian Ethics And Utilitarianism

Introduction The ethical theories of ethical egoism, Kantian ethics and utilitarianism are very interesting in comparison to one another. Ethical egoism and utilitarianism are as different as night and day, one is all about self-sacrifice for the greater good while the other is all about serving your own self interests. Finally Kantian ethics is all about doing your duty, who it benefits, whether yourself or others is inconsequential. These three ethical theories have little in common and they are important to understand as many people’s view on ethics fall into one of these three theories.
Ethical Egoism According to Shafer-Landau (2015), ethical egoism simply says to look out for ourselves. In some instances this is the best advice and
This basically means that if an action causes more happiness than unhappiness then it is a moral action. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, meaning it only looks at results of an action as opposed to the action itself. This means that no action is inherently immoral. However, some consequentialists such as Robert Nozick (1988) believe there are other side constraints which cannot be violated, meaning certain actions, such as rape or murder, are always
What this means is any other virtue isn’t necessarily good. For example, many people think that a strong work ethic is a good virtue, but if the person is working towards an immoral goal then that virtue would not be considered good. According to Wood (1999) Kant believes only acts performed due to duty have any moral worth. Duty is the central theme of Kantian ethics. However, it is important to note that the idea of duty does not apply to evil acts, for example a person who is a murderer does not have a duty to kill