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Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics And The Golden Rule

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What makes lying wrong?
In the following piece, I will evaluate different ethical theories about lying and determine which one is the best. There are many different ethical theories, which can be used as a basis for an ethical judgement, these range from Utilitarianism to Native Spirituality, from the manically consequential to the incredibly passive. In this piece, I will focus on Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics and the Golden Rule.
I will begin with utilitarianism. The fundamental principles of Utilitarianism assign value to actions based on the ‘greater good’ theory (fundamentally, greatest good for the greatest number) and the actions consequences. It is teleological and holds that the moral action is the one that maximizes utility. Without …show more content…

Overall, I believe virtue ethics is a better way to judge lying because it can be used more as a framework than utilitarianism and it isn’t …show more content…

Acting like an ethical guideline rather than a strict rulebook suggests that perhaps the golden rule doesn’t need to be taken so literally, and is more about empathy and sympathy with another’s situation. Regardless, It does have some flaws however, a large problem with the golden rule is that everyone likes being treated different ways, for example, a masochist would enjoy being hit but many other people would not, Karl Popper wrote about his ‘platinum rule: the golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto other, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by.’ I think this is a good point because of the first criticism of the golden rule written above, however, Kant, Nietzsche and Bertrand Russel rejected this rule on a variety of grounds but the most important was its application, how can one know how others want to be treated? One could obviously ask them but this wouldn’t be widely applicable because one would have to ask every single person they interact with how they would

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Lying with Good Intentions There are many times when lying is the best option, the act is reasonable as long as it’s justified. Similar to Ericsson’s experience in her essay “The Ways We Lie”, telling the truth isn’t always possible. When a person receives a notification for a late fee, the first instinct is to find a way out of the situation with a lie. Knowing that the bill has yet to be paid, the lie is easier than facing the repercussions of the truth. According to Ericsson, “I discovered that telling the truth all the time is nearly impossible” (1).

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Before reading the book Monster by Walter Dean Myers, I disagreed with the statement “Lying to save yourself from being convicted of a crime is an okay thing do.” Reading this book has made me slightly change my mind. Before I read this book I believed that it was never okay to lie to save yourself. Now I believe that is is sometimes okay to save yourself. In the book Steve lied to make himself seem more innocent.

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Can dishonesty be valuable if it was used to achieve desirable outcomes? Is lying considered justified if it was involved in a dangerous situation? It is not always bad to lie. As children, we were continuously taught to be honest. We have grown to be implanted with the fact that lying is unacceptable but admissible.

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It may make someone life easier for a moment, but overall there could not be good results coming from a lie. Simply because it could hurt others or destroy relationships, make them feel guilty about lying or even hurt someone’s mental state, and it could cause them to lie repeatedly. The first reason that lying is not okay is because, lying can destroy relationships or even hurt others. Most relationships

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Many people wonder is it wrong to lie or are there some situation where lying is the best option? In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, Mark Haddon shifts Christopher’s outlook on honesty and changed his outlook dramatically. Many people, including Christopher, believe in the statement “honesty is the best policy.” However while Christopher becomes more independent, he realizes that in some situations being dishonest might be the best answer. When his father lies to Christopher, Christopher follows his father’s actions and starts to comprehend when he must lie.

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The first theory that will be explored utilitarianism, an ethical theory that stems from consequentialism. Consequentialism, often referred to as a type of situational ethic, believes an act is right if it has good consequences. Utilitarianism centers around the idea that happiness has intrinsic value. This theory is considered to be normative, or evaluative; in terms of actions being good or bad it considers the solution by asking if it ought to be done or ought not to be done. The principle of utilitarianism deems an act to be right if its outcome produces the most happiness for the most persons.

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Utilitarianism is an ethical system relatively easy to apply. To determine if an action is moral one must simply calculate the good and bad consequences that will result from a specific action. If the good overcomes the bad, then the action is moral. In utilitarianism avoids

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Stephanie Ericsson begins her explorative essay, “The Ways We Lie,” with a personal anecdote of all the lies she fabricated in one day. She told her bank that a deposit was in the mail when it was not, told a client that the traffic had been bad when she was late for other reasons, told her partner that her day was fine when it was really exhausting, and told her friend she was too busy for lunch when she just was not hungry, all in the course of a day. She shifts from talking about herself to talking about everyone, claiming that all people lie, exaggerate, minimize, keep secrets, and tell other lies. But, like herself, most still consider themselves honest people. She describes a week in which she tried to never tell a lie; it was debilitating, she claims.

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Lying has not been formally considered morally wrong or right regardless of the severity. Although it’s near impossible to go through a whole day without even stretching the truth once and decide which types of lies are okay or not. Stephanie Ericsson uses strong metaphors and personal experiences in “The Ways We Lie” to justify the use of our everyday lying. This unbiased essay will help readers decide whether it’s okay to lie on a daily basis. Ericsson starts out with saying she told the bank that her deposit was in the mail even though she hadn't written out the check (495).

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The Art of Lying In our society, many people assume that lying is something wrong to do; they use to say that you always have to tell the truth no matter the situation. I believe those people are certainly wrong because it is impossible for any human being to always tell the truth, Mark Twain said “Lying is universal—we all do it.” This world would be so bizarre if everyone would speak only the truth. It is just something that would never happen, but people are fooling themselves thinking that lying is wrong, that we must tell the truth always.

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When discussing both act and rule utilitarianism, it is important to understand that both of them agree in terms of the overall consequence of an action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and morally right acts.

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(Text.pg.116) Lies are morally wrong, for two reasons. First, lying corrupts the most important quality of being human: your ability to make free, rational choices is deprived of you the moment you tell a lie. Each lie you tell contradicts the part of you that gives you moral worth. Second, lies deprive others of their freedom to choose rationally. When your lie leads people to decide other than they would have had they known the truth, you have harmed their human dignity and autonomy.

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Moral theories are theories that help us distinguish between a right or a wrong action. Adequate moral theories help us understand that what we should or shouldn’t do in certain situations. Two of the most famous moral theories are Utilitarianism and Kantianism. According to Utilitarianism, an action is right if only if it out of all the other action gives out the maximum utility. In oppose to that, Kantianism says that an action is right if and only if, in performing that action, the person does not treat anyone as a mean and treats everyone as an end in itself.

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Suppose a conductor is driving his train and the breaks are defect. The rails lead directly into a cluster of five people who would all die if the train will go this direction. However, the conductor can change onto another track where only one person is standing hence only one person would die. How should the conductor react (Hare, 1964)? Is it possible to condense the problem to a rather simple maximization problem in example that the action is taken, which would kill the least people?

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Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory based on the idea that an action is moral if it causes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. The theory is concerned with predicted consequences or outcomes of a situation rather than focusing on what is done to get to the outcome. There are many forms of utilitarianism, having been introduced by Jeremy Bentham (act utilitarianism), and later being updated by scholars such as J.S. Mill (rule utilitarianism) and Peter Singer (preference utilitarianism). When referring to issues of business ethics, utilitarianism can allow companies to decide what to do in a given situation based on a simple calculation. Many people would agree that this idea of promoting goodness

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