Week 10 Assignment: Ethical Perspectives Discussion 3
Week 10 Assignment: Ethical Perspectives Discussion 3
Determine which ethical perspective is primarily reflected in each of the arguments below and, in 1-2 sentences for each argument, explain why it corresponds to the ethical perspective you selected..
Ethical Perspectives:
A = Consequentialism
B = Duty Ethics/Deontology
C = Virtue Ethics
D = Moral Relativism
Arguments:
Free health care should be available to all people. After all, if that were the case, it would benefit everyone.
Character education should be part of the public school system in the United States. We need to cultivate integrity in our children, and the public school system should play a role in this important process.
Although many societies have practiced human sacrifice, human sacrifice wasn’t considered wrong, even though we believe it is wrong in our culture. So, human sacrifice within those cultures wasn’t really wrong.
Same-sex marriage is right because the polls show that most Americans favor it, even if that is not the case in other countries.
The legalization of same-sex marriage is wrong because the government has no right to legally sanction any form of personal relationship except one: marriage relationships between a man and a woman. That is the only type of relationship that can lead to procreation, and the state has a legitimate interest in procreation. Thus, the state has a duty to support marriage between a man and a woman, and a duty to refrain from getting legally involved in other types of relationships.
Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong because those acts violated the right to life of many innocent people, and we should protect those rights.
Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was right because those acts ended the war faster, and thus made the world a safer place.
We need to do a background check and to collect some character references on Mr. Jones before we hire him.
He doesn’t have the right character and temperament to be a state governor. He has been involved in corruption scandals, known to be dishonest, and has problems controlling his anger.
Sure, slavery is wrong in our society because we all agree it’s wrong. However, slavery isn’t absolutely wrong because many societies have practiced slavery.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
