The Puritans And Utilitarianism

Within the history of the Western tradition of ethics, The modern period of the sixteenth century to the twentieth century was home to the conception together with the birth of modern science. This world also began to coincide with that of the protestant reformation. From this time there has been the conception of four predominant ethical approaches. That being the tradition of faith by the Puritans, the ethics of moral sentiment by the passions, imperatives, and utilitarianism which grew from scientific development. These modern approaches are the creations of a few key players of this time, being Hume, Kant, and Luther, just to name a few. These great thinkers are the fathers of what we know today in terms of modern science.

Before delving

The puritans were classified as the diggers or Agrarian communists. Within the Puritans, there was a man named Luther, as well as groups known as the Levelers and Diggers, these being two groups of protestant radicals that played on heavy ties with agrarian socialism. The idea itself is the conception of two thinkers, Martin Luther and John Calvin as a sort of “path” of God 's word. The Puritan ethic is illuminated to be that of a belief coinciding with a devotion to self-discipline, hard work, duty, responsibility, and thrift. Along with diligent beliefs, the Puritans believed heavily in a God-centered life. In my opinion, this is what a religion should base their morality upon, in that there is a healthy understanding of the higher power. However, the largest impact implemented by the Puritans is their movement in their religious reform movement. Within this movement, there was a thought that the puritans sought to purify the church of England of remnants of the Roman Catholic popery.

Secondly there is the ethics of a moral sentiment, lead by the passions. Lead by David Hume, he believed that moral judgement was derived from passion. Living from 1711-1776 David hume would become well renowned for his statement that there is no permanent self that continues on. Hume would later go on to say that morality is not something that can be judged, but rather felt inside of a person and that all knowledge is from sense

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, was a German philosopher who is considered to be a central figure in modern philosophy. Throughout his career Kant argued that the human mind creates the structure of human experience, that reasoning is the source of morality, that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment, that space and time are forms of our sensibility, and that the world as it is "in-itself" is independent of our concepts of it. However, Kant is most noticed for his platform of alternative ethical approach known as duty. Also regarded as deontological ethics or deontology, it is the ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on rules, which is thought to be where the title of duty comes from. According to the theories placed by Kant, the rightness or wrongness of an action does not depend on their consequences, but rather if they maintain the ability to fulfil our duty.

The last ethical concept is known as Utilitarianism. Conceived by two men, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarianism is a part of the ethical theory that places the locus of right and wrong solely on the outcomes, a concept known as consequences. This is derived from an individual choosing one action over the other and accepting the consequences of the outcome. It is because of this overarching concept that consequences are able to move beyond the scope of one 's own interests and adopts the interest of