ETH/316
July 9, 2013
Ethics Essay Ethics are standards that differentiate right and wrong and how people should conduct themselves. Ethics refer to standards that would prevent someone from doing something wrong, like murder for example. Is it ethical to commit murder? Society has deemed murder as an unacceptable. In the same way ethics help to determine what are appropriate behavior at home, school, and the work place. How we interact with others can be considered ethical, treating others with respect, hospitality, sharing, and helping others in need would be considered good ethical behavior. Ethical standards also include virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.
The Virtue Theory
The virtue theory deals with the individual, the expectation is to “cultivate excellence in all that you do and all that others do (Boylan, 2009).” It deals with the character of an individual. Qualities of a virtuous person would be considered an upstanding, trustworthy, dependable, and honest. In contrast an unethical person would be selfish, unreliable, devious, or careless. …show more content…
It is considered to be wrong when the action intentionally harms others. The deontological approach defines ethics as either right or wrong, there is little or no middle ground for exceptions ("Deontology Ethics," 2008). With the utilitarianism theory it is acceptable to lie if it is to prevent hurting a person, with the deontological theory it is wrong to lie because it is a lie.
Conclusion
The similarities between the ethics theories concern the idea of right and wrong, and good and bad. The differences constitute on how they interpret right from wrong, and good from bad. With the virtue theory deals with the individual, whereas the utilitarianism focus on the group where actions are right when they provide the greatest good to the largest