Ethical
philosophers have clearly defined the rules of moral conduct befitting of how
they believe people should act and make choices. There are many types of
ethicists including consequentialist, ethical relativist, virtue ethicist, duty
based ethicist (deontological), ethical sentimentalist, power-based ethicist,
natural ethicist and the list goes on. This essay will seek to focus on three
ethical philosophers, Buddha, Socrates and Hume, explaining their theories and
how their theories would influence the decision of an ethical dilemma. The
dilemma put forward is a situation which involves a person stealing food for a small
starving child, whether this situation is found
acceptable or not acceptable will also be discussed based on the theories
of the stated philiosophers.
The philosopher Buddha also known as Gotama Buddha,
was one of the greatest Asian thinkers of his time and laid the foundation for
Buddhist philosophy(Velez, 2009). His beliefs were based on consequentialism
where consequences of actions are weighed and virtue ethics where virtues and
moral character are emphasized. The basic principles of Buddhist philosophy
include five precepts: (1)
To avoid
taking the life of beings.
(2). To avoid taking things not given. (3)To
avoid sensual misconduct .(4) To refrain from lying. (5) To abstain from
substances which cause intoxication (Buddha Dharma
Education Association & BuddhaNet ,1996).
Based
on the second basic precept of Buddha stated above, one should not take things
that are not given to you, this signifies that one should have respect for
another’s property. Buddha further elaborates on stealing and states that “if
we steal from others we steal from ourselves” (San Francisco State University,
2011). Therefore in the ethical dilemma presented whereby a person chooses to steal food in
order to satisfy the hunger of a small starving child, this would be deemed as
unacceptable in regards to the philosophies of Buddhism. Though Buddha saw stealing as wrong, he
recognizes the pain and suffering in the world and would desire that the
suffering of the starving child cease. He
would suggest following his life example of selflessness and that the person
seeks the compassion of others for this hungry child. Buddha, was once a prince
with good fortune, however he gave up all he had in order to search for the
meaning of suffering, on his journey his “compassion knew no bounds” (San
Francisco State University, 2011).
Another philosopher of ancient times was the
virtue ethicist Socrates, though he never wrote any material he still had a
profound impact on philosophy and his ideas were written by his followers such as Plato (Nails, 2009).Socrates
main questions were about justice, love,
truth, courage , beauty, knowledge and piety. His ideas believed that: (1) The
proper subject –matter of philosophy is the human being. (2) No one does evil
intentionally. (3) Goodness is a kind of knowledge. (4) What a person has
knowledge of they can give an account of. (5) Death is not an evil (Oregon
State University, 2002).
To
explain more in depth the second and third tenets of Socrates listed above, he believed
that human beings always seek to do good and in spite of the fact that the
action of someone may be perceived as extremely horrible, the action was
committed as the intention of doing good.
There is no excuse for the wrong committed but more so the recognition
of ignorance of what good is on the part of the individual committing the action
(Oregon State University, 2002). Thus Socrates’ response to the ethical dilemma
of stealing for a hungry child would be based on the knowledge the person has
on the concept of good. The food being
stolen would be found acceptable or unacceptable based on the individual
concept of good, one individual’s perspective might be to save the life of a child while the
another individual would obey the laws of the land which forbids stealing.
Hume, a modern ethical philosopher
believed that “moral
distinctions are not derived from reason but rather from sentiment” (Cohon,
2010).His philosophies were different from Buddha who focused more on the consequences
of actions and reason and Socrates who focused on the individual’s knowledge of
good. Hume asserts the following four theses (1) Reason alone
cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (2)
Moral distinctions are not derived from reason. (3) Moral distinctions are
derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval and disapproval felt by
spectators who contemplate a character trait or action. (4) While some virtues
and vices are natural, others, including justice, are artificial (Cohon, 2010).
Hume’s
assertions affirm the fact that sentiments are what decisions are based on,
therefore in the case of the starving child, the choice of whether to steal
food in order to cease the hunger of the child is dependent on the sentiments
of the individual, that is “we
are often impelled to or deterred from action by our opinions of obligation or
injustice” (Cohon, 2010).
To conclude, in order to make a
choice when it comes an ethical dilemma several philosophical views may be
applied such as following the tenets of
Buddha or by using your knowledge
of good as suggested by Socrates or
following the sentimentalist views posed by Hume.
References
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