Ralph and Jack’s Decisions In the Lord of the Flies, Ralph and Jack both have to make some very big decisions. They make these decisions using ethical approaches that coincide with their values. Ralph uses two ethical approaches when he is making a decision: The Utilitarian Approach and The Common Good Approach. Jack goes against most of the ethical approaches such as The Rights Approach and The Fairness and Justice Approach. How Ralph and Jack chose to make their decisions is important because it helps define who they are. The Utilitarian Approach provides the choice that does the least harm. A magnanimous Ralph makes many decisions in which he puts himself in danger, so that no one else in the group has to. On page 109, when someone has to go out and look for the beast, Ralph appoints himself even though he was scared “Course I'm frightened. Who wouldn’t be?...’This is more than a hunter's job,’ Ralph said, ‘because you can’t track the beast. And don't you want to be rescued?’” (Golding). Ralph knew that if he went, it would be less harmful for the group because he would be the only person who would think out a plan to kill the beast instead of not thinking and just charging right into the situation. Ralph …show more content…
From the beginning of the book, Ralph enforces rules that he believes protects the welfare of all the boys in the group. On page 31, Ralph makes his first big rule “‘And another thing. We can’t have everyone talking at once. We’ll have to have ‘Hands up’ like in school…’Then I’ll give him the conch’” (Golding). This is important to the welfare of the boys, because it helps them be more productive. If the boys didn’t make an alteration in their talking habits, then they would never get anything done. The rules that Ralph made helped the boys create a society that is equilibrial with roles and structure—at least for a little while—until it