The humankind is a social entity, which differs from animals, as they are guided by both: their instincts and their moral obligations between each other, commonly established universally. Some of these social regulations are mainly oriented on the group, whereas others are filtrated by the law. These perspectives describe the nature of behavior that an individual implies into. For instance, utilitarianism insinuates that the human behavior has to establish the best scenario, which brings the most common good. The concept of Universal Ethics states that all morals are relative. Both approaches are the extremes of ethical attitude and are not to be used in the society as the only truth.
According to the utilitarian perspective, a person is to act on what seems to be the best outcome out of all possible ones. For that, an individual has to analyze all the implications of the situation, and choose a reaction, which brings as more general goodness as possible. In such a way, saving a drowning person from the water might imply either drowning only one person, or both sinking and the person rescuing. In such case, utilitarian approach might infer that one has to leave a drowning person to sink, since one dead person is better than two, which cannot be said about the Kant’ Categorical Imperative of the Universal Ethic approach. The Categorical Imperative rewards the good intentions of a human behavior, rather than the common good of the outcome. Therefore, even an action, which does not bring the most goodness, as in Utilitarian approach, or seems to be unethical can be ethical under certain conditions. That is to say that even though two people are going to drown, the good intentions would be considered more ethical, even in a terrifying outcome.
To conclude, despite the common name, ethics implies availability of various perspectives on what is true, good, and moral. While one approach is seeking on pursuing the wellfare of the group, the other is centered on the imperatives of the individual. Judging the behavior will therefore depend on the ethical approach chosen to view it through.
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