Consequentialists and Deontologists
How would consequentialists and deontologists evaluate principles governing self-driving cars? (For example, should cars prioritize the passengers inside the car over pedestrians, or vice versa?) What principles would they recommend, and how does this affect the debate between consequentialism and deontology? That is to say, are the principles you support better aligned with consequentialism or deontology—and does this provide a reason to prefer one theory over the other? Make sure that your essay reflects an understanding of what consequentialism and deontology are.
The aims of this assignment are twofold: first, to determine whether you understand the class material and, second, to evaluate your own ability to construct a rigorous moral argument. I encourage you to write your papers with both goals in mind. Do not presup- pose that the reader is familiar with the class material; instead, write your paper aimed at an intelligent person who has not taken this class. To that end, I recommend directly referencing the readings and lectures that bear on your topic. Do not only include quotations, but also explain the central ideas in your own words. For this assignment, you are notevaluated based on what your moral beliefs are. As such, your essay should not simply state what you believe, but provide an argument: one designed to convince the reader that you are correct.
The resource that can be cited are only the four files that I uploaded.
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Consequentialists and Deontologists
In recent years there has been an increase in the application of ethics in most fields. Most organizations are trying to employ ethics since it will help to protect their brand image. Even though there are different types of ethics, one common one is normative ethics which investigates varying questions about how a person should behave in a certain moral sense. Despite normative ethics theories having various ethics, the most outstanding ones are Consequentialism and deontological ethics. The main reason the following ethics are outstanding is that they have disputing perspectives, making the person struggle to fulfill both.
Consequentialism usually evaluates whether the person is morally right by looking at the consequence. In most instances, despite the process that will be followed, the Consequentialists will view an action as morally right by only having the best consequences compared to the available alternatives (Consequentialism 1). In most instances, this approach ignores the process followed to attain the outcome but only bases the whole judgment according to the outcome. When using these ethics, the person does not need to act with "pretty good" consequences, which have more good than harm or are better than average. In most instances, the action will only be supposed to be the best among the alternatives (Kagan 61). The action can vary in morality as the available alternatives vary.
On the other hand, deontological ethics usually base morality on whether the action the person is taking is following the set of principles that have already been set. Deontological ethics does not check the outcome that the action is likely to have, varying from Consequentialism ethics. To decide whether the action is morally right, the individuals usually check whether the action is likely to have. Furthermore, even when there are various alternatives, it can be morally wrong even when it has the best consequence as long as it does not adhere to the already set rules and principles.
In recent years the world has been experiencing technological advancements by a great margin. One of the areas that have experienced this boost is the transport industry. For instance, people are currently enjoying self-driving cars. Even though these cars are expected to make life easier, most people put it on the ethics lens. The consequentialists are working on the principle that the action will be moral based on the other alternatives available. For example, the consequentialists will be basing their actions based on the daily scenarios that will be surrounding them. Therefore, these ethics suggest that self-driving cars will be considered moral because they will offer the best consequence in every alternative.
For instance, the consequentialists highlight that the self-driving car could be moral if it can make the optimum decisions. Therefore, the following individuals advocate that the following process will be outstanding since the cars will use AI to make daily decisions. As long as the following AI successfully offers the optimum decisions, this invention will be moral. One of the claims of self-driving cars is that they will help to reduce traffic accidents. Based on the consequentialists' view, this process will be morally desirable for self-driving vehicles to spread. Even though the consequentialists advocate for self-driving cars to be embraced since they reduce accidents, they are not considering the accidents they are likely to cause. For instance, this approach does not highlight that there could be instances of system failure which could cause accidents that could not have happened. The consequentialists argue that this invention is worth investing in as long as the number of accidents will reduce.
The other principle of consequentialism ethics is similar to the trolley problem-like scenario where the person can either kill a passenger and save pedestrians or swerve a large crowd of pedestrians and save the passenger. If the consequentialist theory, self-driving vehicles employ consequentialism ethics; it will advocate killing a passenger and saving pedestrians (Thomson 1397). If the following cars employ this ethic, it will create a program that will save more pedestrians at the driver's expense. However, the main question that most people are asking is how it could be reasonable. Most people doubt it since if this program is applied, it will lead to fewer purchases of these vehicles. The main reason is that every individual is selfish and wants to employ an action that could have maximum benefits at the expense of others.
On the other hand, the deontologists' view varies from the consequentialist view. In this instance, they view that despite the benefit the following cars will have, they should adhere to the set principles regarding morality. The following approach explains that people should rather have the cars that respect cars that respect individual rights rather than ones that are putting so...