Introduction to Ethics - Ethics for the Information Age - page 50

FIGURE 2.1 Looking down on London, England, at night from space. (Courtesy of NASA)
prohibitions and obligations can be punished. Still, the fact that almost everyone does
live in a community is strong evidence that the advantages of community life outweigh
the disadvantages.
Responsible community members take the needs and desires of other people into
account when they make decisions. They recognize that virtually everybody shares the
“core values” of life, happiness, and the ability to accomplish goals. People who respect
only their own needs and desires are taking the selfish point of view. Moving to the
“ethical point of view” requires a decision that other people and their core values are
also worthy of respect [1].
People who take the ethical point of view may still disagree over what is the proper
course of action to take in a particular situation. Sometimes the facts of the matters are
disputable. At other times, different value judgments arising from competing ethical
theories lead people to opposite conclusions. For this reason, it is worthwhile to have
a basic understanding of some of the most popular ethical theories. In this chapter we
describe the difference between morality and ethics, discuss a variety of ethical theories,
evaluate their pros and cons, and show how to use the more viable ethical theories to
solve moral problems.
2.1.1 Defining Terms
A society is an association of people organized under a system of rules designed to ad-
vance the good of its members over time [2]. Cooperation among individuals helps
promote the common good. However, people in a society also compete with each other;