Deciding Right from Wrong - Essay Example

? Deciding Right from Wrong Larry Stewart Regis Ethics in Information Technology MCSI 610 Deciding Right from Wrong Since the evolutions of the human being on earth, the history of the right and wrong started. Bible says that, the first human Adam committed a wrong thing when he ate a fruit which was denied to him by God. Adam committed the first sin or wrong thing under the influence of evil forces. In other words, evil forces were there even before the creation of the first human Adam. Since the first sin committed by Adam, the segregation of the right thing from the wrong thing has started in the world. However, even after thousands of years, we are still unable to make universal principles with respect to rights and wrongs. The rights of some people are the wrongs of the other people. For example, keeping more than one wife is a sin or a wrong thing for Christians whereas Muslims find nothing wrong in it. Based on individual perceptions, many scholars and philosophers tried to segregate between the rights and wrongs with the help of some ethical theories. This paper briefly analyses the rights and wrongs with the help of some ethical theories formulated by some eminent scholars and philosophers. “The concepts of ethics fall into two main categories; notions having to do with morality, virtue, rationality, and other ideals or standards of conduct and motivation; notions pertaining to human good or well-being and the "good life" generally” (Slote, n.d, p.2). Killing of enemies in a war is perceived as a right thing even though killing of innocent people are perceived as a wrong thing. Moreover, capital punishment is accepted as a morally right thing by many countries whereas some other countries reject capital punishment, purely on moral grounds. In other words, some people believe that killing of an antisocial element is good for the rest of the people in the society and hence such killing should be made legal, considering the future wellbeing of the other people. Most of the countries give capital punishments to terrorists because of the above notion. However, some people are of the view that taking the life of another person cannot be justified under any circumstances because of the immense value associated with human life. In their opinion, we are only creations and only the creator has the authority to make any modifications on our lives. Moreover, killing of criminals will deny them the opportunity to correct themselves. Some of the Muslims have the belief that killing of enemies of their religion is a sacred act. In short, killing of people is justified under some circumstances by some people whereas others object it under any circumstances. In other words, moral theories associated with killing of other people are widely differing in different places. “The categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant, tells us that we may not use or mistreat other people as a means either to our own happiness or to that of other people” (Slote, n.d, p.2). Moreover, Kant argued that "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"(Categorical Imperative, n.d). Kant believed that the moral principles were applicable universally. In his opinion, it is impossible to have a moral principle right at some places and wrong at other places. Nobody knows from where we come and where we go after death. As per Kantian theory, human being has a special role in the creations and hence moral principles with respect to human cannot be applied to other living things. However Kant strongly criticized the segregation of good and evil based on the personal beliefs or the religious beliefs. In his opinion,"Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end”(Categorical Imperative, n. d.) “Utilitarian consequentialists regard pleasure or the satisfaction of desire as the sole, intrinsic human good, and pain or dissatisfaction as the sole, intrinsic evil or ill, and they conceive our moral obligations as grounded entirely in considerations of pleasure and pain” (Slote, n.d, p.3). Utilitarian always analyses things based the utility of the outcome. They believe that the moral validity of an action is determined by the outcome of the action. In other words, capital punishment can be justified under utilitarianism since such a punishment will give Earlier in the twentieth century, ethics, veered away from its past in the direction of metaethics because of the influence of logical positivism. “The positivists held up experimentally verifiable science as the paradigm of cognitively meaningful discourse and claimed that any statement that was not empirically confirmable or mathematically demonstrable lacked real content” (Slote, n.d, p.6). However, the theories of metaethcis are also not free from controversies. “In cases where one's telling a single lie will prevent three others from telling lies, one will not decide what to do by simple arithmetic” (Solomon, 1995,p.10). Most of the modern scientific discoveries have proved beyond doubt that the things we learned about this universe are very small compared to the things which were unknown to us. Earlier, science believed that earth remains stationary and the sun rotates around earth. Later science revised the above theory and argued that sun remains stationary and the earth is rotating around the sun. Now science again modified that theory and argued that both sun and earth are rotating and nothing is remaining stationary. What is next?. .. In short, most of the scientific theories about this universe is undergoing changes periodically and we cannot rely on such changing theories to segregate between the rights and the wrongs. “Virtue theories seem to be attractive within bioethics because of the analogies between the notion of health and overall biological fitness and the general notion of human flourishing that lies at the heart of virtue theories” (Solomon, 1995, p.17). Conclusions The segregation of rights from wrongs is a complex task because of the complex parameters associated with the human actions. Since man is a social animal, all our actions will affect others as well. Our right actions may affect other wrongly. In other words, it is not necessary that our rights might be perceived in the same manner by others. In my opinion, an action which brings good to the individual and the rest of the society can be treated as right whereas actions which results in mixed outcomes should be treated as wrong. References 1. Categorical Imperative (n. d.), Retrieved from http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~hedmonds/lecture%20notes/kant%20lecture%20notes.htm 2. Slote M.A. (n.d.). Task of ethics, Retrieved from 3. Solomon W.D. (1995). Normative Ethical Theories, Retrieved from Read More