Ethical Issues and Morality

I know of four fundamental ethical theories that I wish to share them here; in my opinion all these four cover many of today’s issues around us:

Mill’s Utilitarianism: This theory was stated most clearly by John Stuart Mills (1806-1873). Utilitarianism states that the best choice in a moral dilemma is that which produces the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people.

Kant’s duty ethics: The theory of duty ethics or formalism was put forward by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who proposed that each person has a fundamental to act in a correct ethical manner. He evolved his theory from the belief or observation that each person’s conscience imposed an absolute, categorical imperative (or unconditional command) on that person to follow those courses of action to follow. For example everyone has duty not to tell lies, since, if lying were to be done by everyone, then no promises could be trusted and our social fabric would be at risk of un raveling.

Lock’s Right Ethics: The rights-based ethical theory comes mainly from the work of John Locke (1632-1740), and states that everyone has rights that arise from one’s very existence as a human being. The right to life and the right to maximum possible individual liberty and human dignity are fundamental, and other rights arise as a consequence of personal rights.

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics: One of the earliest and most durable ethicsl theories was proposed by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who observed that the goodness of an act, object, or person depend on the function or goal concerned. For instance, a “good” chair is comfortable! The one quality that humans have, above all other animal, is power of thought; therefore, Aristotle stated that true happiness would be achieved by developing qualities of character through thought, reason, deduction, and logic.