ethics

There are some basic concepts that people use on a regular basis , and which to a large degree make our interaction with the world and with others meaningful . The notions of ethics and morality definitely belong to the list of such important conceptions , and can even be considered superior to many other ones as without our assurance that our beliefs are morally justified we can hardly hope to effectively cooperate in the social environment . Considering the significance that ethics and morality as such have in our life , let us take a look at

several instances of dubious situations when there seems to be a conflict over what is moral

The first instance is represented by a quite realistic situation when the lack of action from the side of a person may immediately lead to the death of another , so that the question arises as to whether the inactive person is to be blamed . Now , what is clear in this situation is that the act of killing in its pure form is one of the most widely recognized immoral actions , so we can on solid ground use killing as an apriori basic ground for judgment . So , the question about the possible immorality of letting die should rather be reformulated as the question of what is the distinction between killing and letting die . On this point , first of all the distinction can be made that killing in many cases is the act of directed aggression , in contrast to the passivity of those who choose to ignore the possibility to prevent somebody`s death However , in most cases it has always been traditional to blame even those people who directly kill others accidentally , without the directed aggression . In this situation , the problem for the person being blamed is that he or she had unluckily appeared in the wrong place and in the wrong time , which still does not remove the moral responsibility , and may only lessen its degree . Similarly , letting die is the action of the category in which inadvertent killing is , and depending on the concrete situation a person may be fully prosecuted (like would be the case with medical workers whose direct responsibility is to prevent letting die or fully acquitted (if the person did not possess skills or tools to prevent death . Nevertheless , the moral responsibility of the person observing somebody dying is not disputed

What we have just outlined is closer to the normative approach , which prescribes social judgments and judicial actions . But if we delve into the individual psychology of people , it may turn out that not too many of us would be willing to acknowledge that we are always responsible for letting die of others , for example of numerous homeless people whom we meet on the streets daily . In this situation , the question of individual perception of what is moral boils down to the old philosophical dilemma of the freedom of will . From this point of view , these dubious cases of letting die are subconsciously perceived by many...