Ethical Theories of Hypothetical and Historical Cases

Ethical Theories
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Ethical Theories
Part A: Ethical Theory to the Hypothetical Scenario 3
The literature on consequentialism, a normative theory or an approach to normative evaluation, contains many nuances and has vastly been developed by thinkers over history. From philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick to later thinkers, including Elizabeth Anscombe, Derek Parfit, and Peter Singer, among others, the basic idea of consequentialism is that an action is right or wrong based on the outcomes (Card & Smith, 2020). Unlike deontologists who reject the idea of harming one person for the benefit of many, consequentialists may endorse such harm if it brings desirable outcomes to a large population (Everett et al., 2018). According to Everette et al. (2018), consequentialists endorse instrumental harm and consider the well-being of each individual with impartial beneficence. In summary, in consequentialism, the outcomes justify the means rather than the means justifying the results. Therefore, consequentialists believe that it is justified for a bus driver to run over a careless drunk pedestrian crossing the road and save the lives of many onboard.
In hypothetical scenario 3, a person has offered money in exchange for certain information, which I believe is in the public domain. Having been in my engineering career for 15 years, this person trusts that I will find and provide the right information to satisfy his needs. An ethical dilemma presents whether it is morally right to accept the work and sell others could obtain by conducting a literature search. In my opinion, it would be ethical to accept this work and sell the information to the person. I will proceed and assist the person using the competence that I have earned in my 15 years of the engineering profession to find quality and accurate information that the person could not find.
Using the ethical theory of consequentialism, where the ends justify the means, I will desist from the notion that I will be selling information on the public domain but consider the request from my client. However, within the ethical and legal frameworks, I will treat the information that I did not create based on whether it was published before 1923, is royalty-free, belongs to the Creative Commons, and follows the “fair use” guidelines (Guilford, 2021). Overall, it is ethical to accept such work and sell the information that other people could obtain but express their limitations of doing so. According to consequentialism, the results of accepting the work would be a satisfied client and a payment made to the contractor, which is of far greater good than rejecting the work.
Part B: Ethical Theory to an Actual Historical Case (The Love Canal environmental disaster)
Ethical dilemmas are often approached using moral theories that provide directions over decisions on challenging issues such as the ethical and legal upshots resulting in the Love Canal environmental disaster due to selfish and profit-hungry corporations. In this historical disaster, the worst environmental disaster occurred in the 1970s resulting from underground chemical wastes. From this disaster, a large population in the Love Canal witne...