Introduction
Ethical decision-making is essential for every individual since it affects virtually every aspect of human life. Ethics refers to the principles and practices that guide how humans should act in every circumstance. It is also concerned with people’s personalities and necessitates certain levels of knowledge, talents, and habits. Humans frequently struggle to determine the optimal course of action. Decision-making is the action or process of considering various possibilities and choosing one.
Many philosophers, ethicists, and theologians have contributed to answering the critical questions of what is good and evil or right and wrong. They have proposed several viewpoints to help people understand ethical issues. This study aims to describe ethics from the utilitarian and virtue-ethical perspectives, which offer different approaches to ethical decision-making. However, both provide valuable insights into the process, with utilitarianism centered on outcomes and implications, and virtue ethics on the development of virtuous character traits.
Steps in the Decision-Making Process
There is no standard framework for making ethical decisions. However, all ethical decision-making models have four essential processes. The first stage is figuring out the problem or choice, which requires a precise topic definition. The second phase is to collect relevant information, including gathering data and insights to lay out all available possibilities.
The next stage is to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each probable alternative. The final stage is to make the decision itself, which involves selecting the optimal plan of action based on the analysis performed in the preceding steps (Larres & Kelly, 2021). This process is iterative and dynamic, often involving reconsideration and modification as new information comes to light.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that holds that the ethically correct course of action in any given scenario is the one that results in the optimal balance of benefits over harms for those involved. It needs to be clarified whether the benefits are obtained through falsehoods, deceit, or coercion, as long as the course of action maximizes benefits for everyone. Utilitarianism focuses on the repercussions of people’s actions by asking, “How will this action impact everyone affected?“(White, 2023).
The results-oriented approach necessitates accurately assessing the possibility of a specific outcome and its consequences. For example, ethical business conduct achieves the greatest good while causing the least harm to all those involved. This could include customers, staff, investors, the community, and the surrounding environment. For example, in making a decision that maximizes the greatest good, I could prefer to reduce the number of employees. The decision is justified because it would free resources for environmental conservation to serve the wider community and future generations.
This example highlights the many decisions people make every day based on moral thinking. When asked why people think they have a moral obligation to perform a specific action, the apparent answer emanates from the good resulting from the activity or the harm it would avert. Business analysts, politicians, and scientists regularly analyze the benefits and drawbacks of policies when deciding whether to invest in a specific public project, approve a new drug, or ban a particular pesticide.
White (2023) indicates that utilitarianism provides an easy way to determine the ethically correct course of action in each situation. Choosing the best course of action entails determining all foreseeable benefits and harms resulting from possible alternatives for everyone affected. The final selection is the option that provides the greatest benefits after costs have been accounted for.
Utilitarianism is attributed to Jeremy Bentham. A legal reformer, Bentham resided in England in the 18th and 19th centuries and sought a fair basis for establishing a publicly acceptable standard for selecting which laws England should implement (White, 2023). He considered the most promising approach to obtaining such an agreement to be selecting the policy that would yield the greatest net gain to society after accounting for the disadvantages. His motto, now well-known, was “the greatest good for the greatest number” (White, 2023).
Over time, the principle has evolved, resulting in diverse variations. Bentham, for example, distinguished between advantages and damages based on pleasure and pain. John Stuart Mill, a great nineteenth-century utilitarian thinker, spoke about the advantages and disadvantages in terms of the quality or intensity of pleasure and suffering rather than their quantity. Today, utilitarians define advantages and harms in terms of individual preferences or in strictly economic terms, as financial benefits versus costs.
Utilitarians also differ in their views on the questions people should ask when making ethical decisions. Some prefer to ask, What consequences will my doing this act in this scenario have on the greater balance of good over evil? People should lie if it results in the best outcome in a given situation. Others, known as rule utilitarians, argue that people must pick the action that adheres to the general principle and has the best outcomes.
In other words, people must ask themselves, What impact would everyone’s doing this type of action have on the overall balance of good over evil? For instance, the rule “to always state the truth” benefits everyone and should always be followed, even if lying would generate the best results in a particular case (White, 2023). Despite these variances, most utilitarians adhere to the broad idea that morality must be based on balancing the positive and negative consequences of people’s actions.
Virtue Ethics
Ethics should provide people with moral principles or universal standards that guide their actions. Individuals sometimes grapple with fundamental ethical dilemmas such as What should I do? and How should I act? Virtue ethics inquires about any activity: What kind of person will I become if I do this? Or is this deed consistent with my actions at my best?
However, ethicists argue that focusing on what people should do or how they should act overlooks the essential question of who individuals should be. In other words, the fundamental ethical question becomes What kind of person should I be? Rather than What should I do? (Zagzebski, 2023). This is an ancient approach to ethics, as it insists that ethical behavior must be consistent with specific ideal virtues that enable humanity’s complete growth.
Some values, such as outstanding performance or a commitment to the common good, are examples of what people should strive for and of how humanity might fully evolve. These values emerge from serious consideration of what people can become. These virtues are traits and habits that enable people to act to their full potential and support values such as beauty and honesty (Zagzebski, 2023). They allow individuals to pursue the acceptable principles, such as bravery, empathy, generosity, faithfulness, integrity, justice, discipline, and moral behavior. In the example highlighted above, the virtues that apply include environmental conservation and caring for future generations.
These are virtues developed through continuous learning and practice. According to the ancient philosopher Aristotle, exercising self-discipline can strengthen one’s character, but continual overindulgence may degrade it (Zagzebski, 2023). People’s ability to be honest, brave, or caring grows through extensive training and practice, much like knowing how to run a marathon.
These are just behaviors that, once developed, become defining characteristics of a person. For example, a person who has cultivated the value of generosity might be considered generous since they are generous in all situations. A person who has nurtured virtues will be predisposed to behave according to moral standards.
The concept of community is central to the virtue-based ethical approach. The desirable moral values are not created in isolation but within and by the groups to which a person belongs. This could be a family, school, church, and other public and private organizations.
As people grow and mature, their characters are heavily influenced by the ideals their communities hold dear and encourage. The role models that the communities present for imitation through conventional works of fiction, movies, television, and other forms of entertainment also play a role (Zagzebski, 2023). The virtue approach encourages people to consider the shapes that characterize their communities and the character traits they foster and instill.
Conclusion
Ethical decision-making is essential to human existence and affects all aspects of life. Ethics, based on the ideas and practices that guide human behavior, requires knowledge, competence, and habitual virtue. Philosophers and ethicists have long debated the concepts of right and wrong, offering numerous perspectives to help humans navigate ethical dilemmas.
This essay has examined two major ethical perspectives: utilitarianism, which promotes maximizing overall benefits while avoiding harm, and virtue ethics, which emphasizes the development of virtuous character qualities. While utilitarianism focuses on results and consequences, virtue ethics concerns the development of moral character. Both viewpoints provide valuable insights into decision-making, emphasizing the significance of weighing options, reflecting on consequences, and integrating actions with ethical values.
References
Larres, P., & Kelly, M. (2021). A framework for authentic ethical decision making in the face of grand challenges: A Lonerganian gradation. Journal of Business Ethics, 182(2).
White, M. D. (2023). Immanuel Kant and utilitarian ethics. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 30(4), 665–667.
Zagzebski, L. (2023). Virtue Ethics. Think, 22(63), 15–21.