Morality is a real hot topic for humanity. In any given situation, what is the right thing to do? Here to answer this question, I’ve got a breakdown of two major schools of ethics.
Deontological Ethics or Duty Ethics
This belongs to the one and only Immanuel Kant, who believes in something called the categorical imperative. If you’ve been through Social 30 in Alberta, you may remember him as the proprietor of the Golden Rule (treat others as you want to be treated). In reality, the categorical imperative goes more as follows:
1. Act as you would wish everyone act
2. Treat humanity as an end in itself, or as though they have intrinsic value (including yourself)
3. Allow others their autonomy
If you are not following these imperatives, you are an animal and deserve what comes to you, in Kant’s opinion at least. It seems harsh, but he subscribes to an idea that a good thing is nothing without a good will behind it, and a good will is a will which does as it ought to do—or in other words, one that follows the categorical imperative.
On the other hand, Kant does believe that we should treat our animals well, and that those who do are naturally more predisposed towards treating everything well.
Kant was anti-imperialist and anti-intervention (which also means he is not technically in favour of liberalism). He also believed in divine forgiveness, but retributive justice.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is another major school of ethics which believes that we should promote the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. It belongs to John Stuart Mill.
In truth, it also seems a little extreme. In essence, in order to do the ‘right’ thing or behave morally, you must always pick the choice which gives you the most pleasure and causes the least suffering for others—and which, if possible, promotes the happiness of others. For example, if you had a choice between a mango and a strawberry smoothie and you strongly prefer mango, it would be considered immoral to pick the strawberry.
Let’s take this a step further and apply the theory of greatest net happiness to the world as a whole. According to John Stuart Mill, if the price of all humans in the world being happy was the eternal suffering of a single innocent child, it would be the most moral decision to make. This line of thought is the basis of a famous short story called The Ones Who Walk Away From The Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, which you can read more about here.
There are different types of utilitarianism as well, namely rule and non-rule utilitarianism, but those are a story for another time.
In the meantime, I hope you’ve found this valuable. Good luck with your moral dilemma!