Unitarian Vs Kantian Ethics

A subject of discussion that has become prevalent in the United States today is gun control. In light of the recent, unnecessary and horrific shootings that are taking place, such as the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut, the question of gun law has become a heated debated, both politically and ethically. Gun laws originate from the Second Amendment, which gives the right to citizens to bear, and keep their arms. The US Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms; however this right is highly debated and has evolved into more than just a political issue. When examining the ethical ramifications of gun laws, both Unitarian and Kantian schools of thought can be used to advocate for or against gun control, particularly in instances of self-defense.

Acts are good to the extent that they maximize happiness and pleasure, and minimize pain and suffering. Utilitarianism is predicated on the theory of life, which is that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends to a mean. Pleasure and freedom from pain are viewed as desirable, either for the inherent pleasure in themselves or as the means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain. It also stems from Bentham’s theory of utility. His theory states that utility is pleasure with the exemption from pain. Utility, also known as the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion to the amount that they create happiness and wrong to the proportion that they tend to cause pain or suffering. Utility is therefore not limited solely to the pursuit of happiness, but the deterrence or prevention of unhappiness. Kantian Ethics is based on the view that the only intrinsically good thing in the world is a good will. In Kant’s view of ethics an action can only be good if its maxim, the principle, is a duty to moral law. Kant acknowledges that reason is naturally at the service of an individual’s desire to obtain the highest good, and therefore the achievement of happiness cannot, from a moral standpoint, be the aim of an individual’s actions. Under

” The amendment has come under considerable fire in the last half of the twentieth century and eventually led to a landmark Supreme Court case. In 2008 the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller took place and a precedent was set. As a result of this hearing, the court ultimately inferred that the second amendment, “guarantee’s the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and that central to this right is “the inherent right of self-defense” that the home is “where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute”; and that, above all else, the second amendment elevates “the right of law abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home. ” It is therefore a legal right to own a gun; it affords American citizens the ability to safeguard themselves from harm’s