Summarizing Sarah Baase "Gift of fire" 1.4

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In this chapter of “A gift of fire”, Sarah Baase makes an introduction to the different ethics theories. The issue of doing things right has occupied the work of many philosophers during history, thus many different theories have been formulated.
Some ethicists separate the theories between deontological and consequentialist theories. Whether the first ones determines if a behavior is ethic based on the intention of the act itself, the second ones only classify an act as good or bad according to its consequences.
An example of deontological ethicist is Kant. He contributed with some important ideas to ethics theories: first, the principle of universality, which established that the rules of behavior must be applied to everyone. Second, the prevalence of the reason over the emotions when taking decisions. Third, he correct way to treat people: as ends, not as means.
Utilitarianism, the main consequentialist theory, postulates that “utility” is the main goal, understanding “utility” as happiness. An action is considered ethically right if it increases someone´s utility and vice versa. This approach is also called “act utilitarianism”. If rules are considered instead of single acts, then the approach is called “rule utilitarianism”. Act utilitarianism has many disadvantages due to its narrow approach, limited to the scope of one act, being difficult to predict the consequences.
Another approach to ethics is the concept of Natural Rights. Some ethicists understand that some rights as life, liberty and property are intrinsic to the human nature, and thus should be respected. Taking this as corner stone, other ethics theories against actions that can harm these rights can be formulated.
There are two different kinds of rights: Negati...

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... would not take due to a personal preference, can be perfectly legitimate and ethic for another one. Thus, if the decision is ethic for the second person, it should be also for the first one.
The last issue to be addressed in this chapter of “A gift of fire” is the relationship between law and ethics. Baase states that there is not much of a connection between both. Governments, banks, and business many times benefit from laws that are not clearly ethical. Besides, there are some laws that simply establish behaviors that have to be followed and the only unethical issue when not following them would be only the fact of violating a law. Other laws are simply created to benefit some groups or as a result of some kind of pressure on governments.
Even if obeying a law is not necessarily ethic, and something ethic is not always legal, no ethics or laws should be ignored.

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