What makes a man virtuous? Tara Smith believes that it is honesty that makes a person truly virtuous. Honesty is typically thought of as being the opposite of a lie or the truth. In‚ “The Metaphysical Case for Honesty” Smith explains how honesty is deeper than just lies versus the truth. Lies are only a small piece of an extensive realm of lying and faking. Once the lies have begun it takes more lies and fictitious statements to continuously keep up this front. Smith claims that whether a person
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Act utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics which states that a person’s act is morally right if and only if it produces the greatest overall utility. In assessing a moral theory there are four adequate criteria which are: completeness‚ explanatory‚ practicability and moral conformation. For completeness‚ an ethical theory should support all meaningful moral claims‚ neglecting none of the claims. Next‚ there is explanatory power. For this assessment a theory should provide insight into what
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When an ethical problem is found‚ the course of action is determined by moral rules‚ ethic principles‚ self-appraisal and defences (Cooper‚ pg. 30). It is obvious that the guards went with the prescriptive model of decision making progress. After finding the problem and analysing it‚ they created a solution that brought about the change
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Immanuel Kant explores the morals of an action based on the action’s fidelity to rules or regulations‚ each person has dignity as well as the ability to reason. Kant disagrees with the utilitarian principle; he believes that you shouldn’t make decisions based on pleasure. “Kant’s moral theory is based on his view of the human being as having the unique capacity for rationality. No other animal possesses such a propensity for reasoned thought and action‚ and it is exactly this ability that requires
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Trident University Module 1 Case Assignment ETH301: Business Ethics After reading over the case study‚ I look back to my childhood when my family was affected by a tornado in our local area. Homes were destroyed and many people were forced to seek housing elsewhere. The hotels/motels in the area jacked prices up considerably‚ which were too expensive for some of the affected families. Looking at this situation from different perspectives will change which ethical theory‚ whether Deontological
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Consequentialism is an approach to ethics that argues about the morality of an action is depending on the action’s outcome or consequence. Therefore‚ a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome or result‚ and the consequences of an action or rule generally outweigh all other considerations. The term "consequentialism" was coined by Elizabeth Anscombe in her 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy"‚ as a pejorative description of what she saw as the central error of certain moral theories
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main tenets of Natural Law? Do the strengths outweigh the weaknesses? (25) Natural law is the belief that man desires happiness‚ however for the philosopher Thomas Aquinas‚ he believes this mean fulfilling our purpose as humans. Natural law was an ethic rooted in the philosophy of Aristotle‚ in the 4th century. He came up with the idea that everything in life serves a purpose and therefore distinguished efficient causes from final causes. The efficient cause is what gets things done. For example‚
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Thus‚ rather than relying on amorphous‚ vague moral truths to guide action we should look to more concrete ways of determining the ethics of a particular act. Also‚ utilitarianism would argue that deontology leads to morally untenable outcomes‚ such as in the example above. Utilitarians would argue that the outcome of everyone’s deaths (those who could not support agriculture) is much
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understand what stance a utilitarian takes on justice in this circumstance. The first thing that must be recognized is the fact that there are two types of utilitarianism in instances concerning overall justice. Julia Driver mentions this in her book Ethics: The Fundamentals. Driver posits that there is a difference between act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism (Driver 64). Act-utilitarianism deals more with what classical utilitarianism believes. It follows the belief that one should choose the
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Ethical egoism is the normative theory that the promotion of one’s own good is in accordance with morality. In the strong version‚ it is held that it is always moral to promote one’s own good‚ and it is never moral not to promote it. In the weak version‚ it is said that although it is always moral to promote one’s own good‚ it is not necessarily never moral to not. That is‚ there may be conditions in which the avoidance of personal interest may be a moral action. In an imaginary construction
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