The CNN article published on 23rd May 2022 addresses the ethical issues surrounding leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention church who are facing allegations of having mishandled sexual abuse reports. The leaders are said to have intimidated the victims and those who advocated for them and resisted reform suggestions over two decades (Sutton et al., 2022). This article presents an unethical issue since the leadership in the church is tasked with ensuring that the moral standing of its leaders and society at large is maintained. The same group ignored victims for the longest time and took no action against the perpetrators. The utilitarianism theory states that the overall action outcome should benefit the greater majority. In this case, the majority were the victims, and the church leadership chose to ignore them in support of the few who were the offenders. This course of action led the church to lose their mora standing later and lose in general due to their decision.
According to Kantian theory, one should always ensure that their actions are per rules that can hold up for everyone and have respect for the humanity in other people (Pavlova et. al., 2019). The act of disqualifying the reports made by those who took the initiative to speak out for the victims was against this theory. With continuous pushing to give this problem the attention it deserved and making sure third-party firms investigate the matter, the individuals acted per the rule that ensures that justice is served for everyone and this situation won’t happen again. The common good approach is the most logical in this case as it ensures that not only the perpetrators face justice but those who failed to take action against them too. This ensures that society is made to believe that there can be justice for anyone at any level and that vice cannot be accepted no matter the perpetrator.
Reference
Joe Sutton, Keith Allen and Emma Tucker (2022). Southern Baptist Convention leaders mishandled sexual abuse allegations, report says. CNN. Ethics. Web.
Pavlova, T., Zarutska, E., Pavlov, R., & Kolomoichenko, O. (2019). Ethics and law in Kant’s views: the principle of complementarity. International Journal of Ethics and Systems.