Danny Fahlgren
PHI-316
10/23/2014
Ethical Theory Choice Paper
My Personal Ethical Theory Choice
In class, we discussed four major ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kant’s
universal law formula of the categorical imperative, Kant’s end-in-itself formula of the
categorical imperative, and Ross’s ethics of duty. These four theories offer different ways to
approach making an ethical decision. First, I will discuss the three theories that I rejected, and
will conclude with the theory that I chose to make my own personal moral standard; based on the
options we were given.
The first theory that was presented to us that I would reject would be utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism judges the rightness and wrongness of action based on the consequences of action
for everyone affected. Another way to state act-utilitarianism is an act A is right when, from
among the alternative courses of action available to the agent, act A is the one which will have
the best (or least bad) consequences overall when everyone to be affected by the action is taken
into account. One big objection against this theory is that sacrificing the individual for the good
of the group may not always be a good thing. An example of this would be that if a child is put
through medical tests and medication that give the child a disease that they die from, but overall
the new medication leads to research that helps save more people’s lives once the drug is
advanced enough. If you did a case of utilitarian calculus, the positives for the greater good of a
whole group would largely outweigh that of the individual child, therefore justifying why this
innocent child needs to die. Personally, I disagree with this ethical theory, and therefore I did not
choose it as my own personal moral standard.
The next ethical theory that we discussed that I rejected was Kant’s universal law formula of the
categorical imperative. Kant’s universal law formula of the categorical imperative says that one
should “act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law. Another way to state this would be that act A is right when the agent can
choose that everyone perform act A in the same circumstances. To apply the universal law
formula, you have to first state the maxim, then turn the maxim into a universal law, and then
decide if the universal law is acceptable. One objection to this theory is that sometimes it is
difficult to define what the maxim actually is, because real life examples are more complex. An
example of this would be if a man on dialysis who needs an organ donor but can’t find one so his
wife is going to get pregnant and have an abortion to give him an organ. Some people would say
that in order for this to be accepted as universal law, you would need to include the fact that the
man would commit suicide if he wasn’t given an organ. To some people this could be relevant,
but to others it could not be, so it is difficult to define the maxim. Once again I disagree with this
theory because I think it has too many flaws and some situations can be justified to some people
in certain circumstances, but not everyone would agree, therefore it cannot be universal law.
The third theory that I rejected was Kant’s end-in-itself formula of the categorical
imperative. Kant’s end-in-itself formula says that one should “act in a way that you always treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means,
but always at the same time as an end. One objection to this theory is that this theory applies only
to rational beings, which brings up the issue with human beings who are mentally disabled and
cannot think rationally, as well as animals that cannot be considered rational beings. An example
of this would be that a mentally healthy person could take advantage of a mentally ill person,
because they are not considered rational beings and therefore do not apply to the theory.
Finally, the theory that I chose as the best ethical theory would be Ross’s ethics of duty.
Ross’s ethics of duty states that an act is right if either all the relevant prima facie duties point to
doing the act or the most stringent duty among conflicting relevant prima facie duties points to
doing the act. To do a relevant assessment of the ethics of duty, we use prima facie duties, which
include fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and
nonmaleficence. These prima facie duties become self-evident when we have reached sufficient
mental maturity and have given sufficient attention to the proposition, meaning that we are
mature enough to be able to clearly think about the decision being made. One reason that this is a
good ethical theory is that it deals with different prima facie duties which allow the decisionmaker to decide what is relevant to their specific situation and adjust from there as opposed to
other theories that only allow what is best for the greater good. Also, this is a good theory
because it takes into account our duties, which are promises that are made, and I believe that
ethics should be based on promises and how to be able to keep them. W.D. Ross says that “What
we think makes it right to do something we have promised is the fact that we have promised to
do so, not that the act will produce the best consequences”. This is on the contrary to
utilitarianism, which I found to have many objections and flaws; therefore I chose this theory as
the best. One objection to this theory is that there is no definite mechanism for determining
which is the most/more stringent duty when duties conflict. This objection can be answered by
determining which duty is the most stringent before deciding that they conflict, therefore if you
do run into a conflict, it can be resolved easily since the decision has been made beforehand.