The Relationship Between All Three

(Choices are difficult.)

Similarities:

• Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics all attempt to rationalize (explain with reason) moral decisions.
• All include elements of equality in their theories
• Utilitarianism: everyone's happiness counts equally
• Deontology: universal rules apply to everyone equally
• Virtue Ethics: equality between vices

Differences:

• Virtue Ethics is more flexible than Utilitarianism and Deontology, which rely on happiness or rules dictated by society.
• "What would a good person do in this situation?"
• Each theory views what matters most in an action differently.
• Utilitarianism: consequences matter most
• Deontology: intentions matter most
• Virtue Ethics: balance between two extremes/vices matter most

Crying Baby Dilemma (Would you kill a baby?)

Description: Enemy soldiers have taken over your village. They have orders to kill all remaining civilians. You and some of your townspeople have sought refuge in the cellar of a large house. Outside, you hear the voices of soldiers who have come to search the house for valuables. Your baby begins to cry loudly. You cover his mouth to block the sound. If you remove your hand from his mouth, his crying will summon the attention of the soldiers who will kill you, your child, and the others hiding out in the cellar. To save yourself and the others, you must smother your child to death. Is it appropriate for you to smother your child in order to save yourself and the other townspeople?

Utilitarian Perspective: Smother the baby.

• Killing the baby maximizes happiness by ensuring the most civilians stay alive, even if one dies. Therefore, it is the most right action to kill the child.

Deontological Perspective: Don't smother the baby.

• Universal Rule: Murder (especially child murder) is wrong.
• Because everyone must follow all of the rules all of the time, even in times of desperation, one must not commit murder at all. Committing murder would be justifying for other people, and a sustainable society cannot be sustained if everyone had to the right to murder. Therefore, it is the most right action to not kill the child.

Virtue Ethical Perspective: Smother the baby.

• One must fine the balance between self-sacrificing (giving everything you have for the betterment of everybody else) and self-seeking (sacrificing everybody else's wants/needs for your own). In this case, the only way to save yourself (preserving your own interests) and other people (perserving others' interests) is to kill the baby.

Premises to Consider:

• Legally, sometimes killing is justified.
• There is no scenario where the baby survives (either killed by the soldiers or by the parent).
• Not killing the child will lead to the death of every other civilian in the village.

Conclusion:

• In this scenario, I would cover my baby's mouth and kill it for the benefit of everybody else. In many legal jurisdictions, murder is justified if there is an imminent danger posed to the potential victim(s), even if murder by itself is mostly illegal and immoral. This applies in this scenario, whereby enemy soliders most an imminent threat to the lives of the civilians if the soliders were to discover them. Though not all laws are moral, their existence can provide a moral backing if one were to follow the rules of society (i.e. to be a deontologist, although the deontological perspective from above is still true for the opposing view). Morover, because there is no scenario where the child survives, as the baby will be smothered by the parent or by shot by enemy soldiers, the consequences for the child remain the same regardless of the path taken. Ergo, one must look to the effects of each action on everybody else to decide what to do, as each action provides different consequences for other civilians. From a utilitarian perspective, letting every civilian die is significantly worse than letting one, young civilian die since everybody's well-being is equal, and a group's well-being is weighed more than just one person's well-being. Therefore, in an effort to both perserve the interests of my fellow civilians in the town, as well as my own interest as one of the civilians whose lives are in danger, I must smother my baby, as not killing it would be practically killing everybody else in this situation.

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