Ethics Essay

Ethics Essay

Jamal Turner

University of Phoenix

Eth/316

Ryan Busch

July 23, 2013

Introduction

Ethics in today's society are sometimes overlooked; there are many forms of ethics that sometimes they are all hard to differentiate. As an assignment for school I was given the task of explaining each form of ethics, and briefly describe differences, and similarities. The reader can expect to see contrast of the topics, and their definition, as well as an explanation, and the relationship between all of the ethics chosen. The reader can also expect to hear personal experience to explain the relationship between virtue, values, and moral concepts as they relate to one of the three theories.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is an approach to ethics that emphasizes the character of the moral agent, rather than rules or consequences, as the key. In other words this type of ethics takes the focus away from which rules should be followed by individuals, and instead helps to develop good character traits ("Virtue Ethics: Morality And Character", 2013). Virtue ethics places less emphasis on rules that should be followed by individuals and focuses on helping those individuals develop better character traits.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism in short can be defined as an ethical philosophy in which the happiness of the greatest number of people in society is considered the greatest good ("Utilitarianism", 2013). One of the major ways that this theory differs from other theories is moral principles are not absolute with utilitarianism. This theory is also categorized by two main elements; those elements are happiness and consequentialism.

Deontological

Deontological ethics are ethical theories that place special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. With this type of ethics actions are considered moral because of some of the characteristics leading to those actions. Deontological ethics can occur in two forms one form is action oriented, and the other rule oriented, action oriented tends to focus on the motivation of a certain action. Rule oriented focuses on the role played in your actions.

My example for one of the theories is when I was a pipefitter I was sent out to check on a job that had some leaking sprinkler heads. Technically if more than one head is leaking within a 25 foot radius