Reasoning Ethics
Compare and Contrast
Consequentialism has two theories; egoism and utilitarianism. They both agree on finding a way humans should act to achieve positive consequences. The difference is that egoism is taking in account of ones self and how the consequences only affect themselves. Utilitarianism concentrates on not only oneself but also everyone whom the consequences may affect. (Thiroux P., Jacques and Krasemann W., Keith. “Concequentialist (Teleological) Theories of Morality.” Ethics: Theory and Practice, 9th edition. New Jersey, 2007. 33-34.)
Nonconsequentialism is a whole other basis. They do not consider concequences and rely fully on intuition and there are no general moral rules but “only particular actions, situations, and people about which we cannot generalize”(54). The individual is to decide what is the right or wrong action to take in a situation. Nonconsequentialists do not concern with consequences and do what they feel is right in a situation and the people involved in it.
To compare the two, consequetialism is hard to know the future of the consequences whether it will be good for all or not. Nonconsequentialism has a set right from wrong look of behaviors no matter how the outcome will turn out. Consequentialists look at detail and find out how things will affect them and other people in a situation, nonconsequentialists act on whether the action is right or wrong to everyone. Both, however, understand that there is a right and wrong to human behavior they just act differently in concerning consequences.
Since nonconsequentialists don’t look on concequences the advantage does not have to compute them as a moral action. “They provide, in their rule form, a strong set of moral rules”(65) when approaching the rules of morality, unlike consequentialists. Although they have a strong set of rules it may be difficult to rank them of importance to resolve conflicts when absolutes...
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