The Bentham's Consequentialism Ethic and Kant's Deontological Ethic

The Bentham's Consequentialism Ethic and Kant's Deontological Ethic

  • Submitted By: hoop
  • Date Submitted: 05/04/2010 6:13 PM
  • Category: Philosophy
  • Words: 490
  • Page: 2
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Ja’na Jenkins
East Meets West
04-27-2010

Ethics Paper
There are two ethics that is being described within the reading; they are Bentham’s consequentialism ethic and Kant’s Deontological ethic. Bentham’s consequentialism suggests that “it is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences.” It is basically stating that in order to understand what is morally right based off an action one must understand the consequences of that action. An example of consequentialism would be if an individual thought about stealing from a grocery store and he also thought about the consequences, by him thinking of the consequences he is allowing that thought to control his actions. Kant’s Deontological idea is different from Bentham. The deontological idea is based upon duty of an individual. “It judges morality by examining the nature of actions and the will of agents rather than goals achieved.” This states that the nature of the action does not depend on the goal after the action is taken place; it depends on what the action is. An example of this would be a solider in the army performing his duties because he is required to no matter what they may be.
The two ideal ethics are different but they have a similar structure to them. They both are based off actions in some way. They are interesting because they make one think before an action is taken place and also when the action is taken place. It is very difficult to distinguish a like or dislike for the ethics because they are very similar. It seems as if the creators of the ethics work together to come up with something knowledgeable to speak upon. I have no like or dislike for the ethics because deciding what is wrong or what is right within this reading is somewhat difficult. In both situations actions are based off judgment, although one may say consequence and the other may say duty in the end is it basically the same concept. The reading was interesting because I was able to compare two...

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