Moral Frameworks Help

[river444]

I need help on an assignment. We have to identify our moral frameworks and how we make moral choices. Our choices are:

• Ethical Egoism My choices should maximize my own happiness.
• Utilitarianism My choices should maximize happiness for all.
• Agapism My choices should show self-sacrificial love for all (Jesus).
• Deontological.
  Please give me a real life example of each. I tend to think logically, so abstract things like philosophy are a challenge for me.
  Thank You

 

[IvanKaramozov]

I need help on an assignment. We have to identify our moral frameworks and how we make moral choices. Our choices are:

• Ethical Egoism My choices should maximize my own happiness.
• Utilitarianism My choices should maximize happiness for all.
• Agapism My choices should show self-sacrificial love for all (Jesus).
• Deontological.
  Please give me a real life example of each. I tend to think logically, so abstract things like philosophy are a challenge for me.
  Thank You

Well I think that’s a poor assignment, not all moral theory fits in those three choices.

Ethical Egoism-Mussolini I suppose, a dictator is an excelent instance of this isin’t he? I generally associate this with Nietzsche, but I don’t think that’s really right, it’s more a personal psychological association

Utilitarianism dosen’t work for happiness for all, I 'm fairly sure it seeks maximum happiness for the maximum number of people. Look up Peter Singer.

An Inuit tribe dosen’t have enough food to feed everyone if a newborn child lives, so they let the child die so the rest can live.

Agapism-Mother Theresa

Thinking abstractly is generally thinking logically, perhapse you think pragmatically?

 

[river444]

That’s I what meant. We also have to apply these to 3 different issues, global warming, media violence and drug legalization.

 

[ribozyme]

virtue ethics can be added…

Regarding drug legalization, utilitarianism allegedly supports it because one can invoke the harm principle articulated by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. However, one can argue that the legalization of drugs would harm society as a whole resulting in infants with diminished cognitive capacity as the barriers for drug abuse are lowered. Fetal alcohol abuse is one example of the negative effects of drugs and babies.

Ethical egotism would not endorse the use of drugs because they can destroy your life.

Deontology: How do you know if we have a duty to oppose drugs? Since we are motivated by duty, laws don’t matter.

 

[ribozyme]

Ethical Egoism-Mussolini I suppose, a dictator is an excelent instance of this isin’t he? I generally associate this with Nietzsche, but I don’t think that’s really right, it’s more a personal psychological association

Ethical egoism supports rational self-interest.

BTW, I think Ayn Rand would be the paragon of an ethical egotist.

aynrand.org/site/News2?id=6136&page=NewsArticle

I’ll quote from that page:

The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
–Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)

The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics – the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life – are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride…

[The virtue of pride] means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty…

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others – and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.

I have rely encounter agapism, not even in real life…

Cannot provide any real example, maybe that is why I am such a prick…

But this is a notable fictional example of something I think exemplifies that:

youtube.com/watch?v=c50ORwy44I0 (play 6:00-7:15)

I do not think most humans have such a capacity, such attitudes would not be favored in the African savannah, I guess.