Utilitarianism And Kantian Ethics

Whether or not to give money to a homeless man depends on one’s values. Especially if you have the money and would hardly notice it’s absence. This paper will argue whether to give money to a homeless person based on the theories of utilitarianism, Kantian ethics and virtue ethics. Utilitarianism promotes maximizing the most happiness or pleasure. Therefore, this view would give the homeless person the money. This theory believes that it is our moral responsibility to help those in need. For example, Peter Singer states this principle “requires us only to prevent what is bad, and not to promote what is good, and it requires this of us only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, comparably important”

Kantians believe that the rightness or wrongness of an action does not depend on the consequences, but on whether they fulfill a duty. They must act in a way that will produce the greatest overall amount of good in the world. In this view there is no obligation to give money to a homeless person, but it is the right thing to do. Kant’s supreme moral principle is the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is a moral law that is unconditional for all agents because of intrinsic value. The wellbeing of other people is important. This theory also states that we should not use people merely as a means to an end. Instead “check that the act will treat other persons as ends in themselves” (O’Neal 412) which would promote giving money to the homeless person. We should try to act in a way that benefits others. At the same time, we cannot fulfill all what others want because “their wants are too numerous and diverse, and of course, sometimes incompatible” (O’Neal 414). Because we would hardly miss the twenty dollars if we gave it away, it is only right to give it to the homeless individual. Kantians also believe that duties of justice are the most important. To act “beneficently is to seek others’ happiness, therefore to intend to achieve some of the things that those others aim at with their maxims” (O’Neal 412). In the eyes of a homeless person, money would maximize their happiness because it is needed to buy the