Exploring the Four Frameworks of Ethics: A Practical Analysis

Everyday individuals are faced with difficult situations, and in some cases these situations bring into question a person’s moral code. These dilemmas make people think about what the right thing to do is and what the wrong thing to do is. Any person can follow the four basic frameworks of ethics to figure out what needs to be done. Those frameworks being ethical egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. But first I will put you in a tricky situation and shed some light on the different routes an individual could take according to those four ethical frameworks. Then I will give my opinion on what I would do in the situation and I will state some objections a critic might have on my opinion. Imagine you live in a small country

In the situation above a utilitarian would say that stealing the cure is the best option. They would say this because a utilitarian believes if the action maximizes the best consequences for the greatest number of people, and for everyone that would benefit from that action then it is deemed to be ethical. That would be called the greatest happiness principle. They also believe that an action is ethical if it reduces suffering for the greatest amount of people involved. So in your case stealing the cure would be the action with the greater consequences because you wife won’t die and the other doctor wouldn’t be taking a big loss because he is already wealthy. But there is another form of utilitarianism that wouldn’t condone stealing, it’s called act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism says that stealing is bad if there is no good reason for doing so and if the happiness produced is as good as any other act that could be done. In our situation, we are stealing for the well-being of our family and letting your wife doesn’t add up to the happiness you would get if she lives. The previous frameworks described support stealing the cure for your sake and happiness. Therefore, ethical egoism and utilitarianism favor each other drastically in this situation. Is this the right way to go in these circumstances? Well, let’s look at things in another