Theories Of Deontology And Utilitarianism: Ethics And Morality

More often than not, a person will encounter themselves in a difficult and problematic situation. Life is not a walk in the park when it comes to making decisions. Making choices may not be feasible when under pressure and stress. Ideally, this applies to those choices that are not black and white. In relation, this is where a person's morality comes into play which reveals their true personal standards. Theoretically, standards and laws aid to guide humanity to improve the quality of life. In this scenario, a husband is attempting to purchase medication to cure his wife who is ill and dying from cancer. After failing to meet the cost of $200,000, the man is determined to sell all that he owns in order to acquire enough money. Since he did

The Theory of Deontology states that humanity is governed by rules which are not meant to be broken by any means. Humans are responsible for abiding by these regulations no matter the circumstance because this is man's moral duty. The theologist Immanuel Kant basically says, "We must obey them even if we don't want to, and even if moral obedience gets us nothing that we care about." (Shafer-Landau 168). In this circumstance, stealing this medication would ultimately result in the husband into disobeying the basic rule of morality. On the other hand, Utilitarianism states, "an action is morally required just because it does more to improve overall well-being than any other action you could have done in the circumstance." (Shafer-landau 122). Utilitarianisms believe to best satisfy the comprehensive benefit of humanity; one should desire to adopt the better action for the overall circumstance to establish an equal balance of happiness. According to this theory, the results of an action should bring a more satisfying conclusion. If the husband were to steal the medication in order to cure his wife's illness, his decision would subsequently maximize his happiness and not be considered a bad thing. Thus, Deontology conveys no exceptions for breaking the law whereas Utilitarianism bases decisions upon the best interest that positively affects the overall being which would permit stealing

The world is made up of many different cultures, so this setting would allow humans to collaborate under a universal bureaucracy. This would be advantageous because it would allow fair and just consequences for every individual. However, the disadvantage with Deontology is that there are no exceptions for an individual in this ethical dilemma. When collaborating different cultures, it may be complex to diffuse any strong ties to beliefs. This brings an important point because the disadvantage in the dilemma is not giving the husband an option to save his wife. In contrast, an advantage to Utilitarianism is that an action is justified if the result has a positive outcome. In other words, "Utilitarians tell us to do