Ethics are moral principles that affect my decisions. It originated from the Greek work ethos meaning custom, habit, character or disposition. The concept of ethic is derived from our philosophies, social, cultural and religious beliefs. Furthermore, “it dictates acceptable moral standards for what is right and wrong, good or evil, justifiable, permissible, unjustifiable in terms of our human rights, obligations, fairness and benefits to society.” (MacKinnon , pg. 1). Moreover, Kant’s deontological ethics places emphasis on my obligation, duties, and rights but never on the consequences of my actions. It explains that my acts are right or wrong only in themselves, but despite the consequences, I must act accordingly. On the other hand, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills’ Utilitarianism epitomizes the consequences of my actions which is to perform “the greatest good for the greatest number of people,” meaning that whatever thing I do, I must produce the most happiness for the most amount of people. (MacKinnon , pg. 177). Contrastingly, Virtue ethics focuses on virtue or moral characters instead of duties, rules, or the consequences of my actions. I think ethics can be our moral compass for today’s ethical and moral issues on …show more content…
Utilitarianism ensures us, “the greatest happiness or the best consequence for the greatest number of people and it justifies any actions we do to achieve our goals.” Conversely, Kantian states that some acts can achieve favorable outcomes despite the acts themselves were morally wrong. Kant tells us that it doesn’t matter, we should go ahead and do our best to achieve our goals in life, regardless if we fail or succeed once we had good intentions to do the right thing from the beginning. “All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?”