Solving Problems Using Ethical Theories


The Problem

My best friend and his girlfriend broke. The girlfriend spread rumors that my best friend slept with other people, but it is the other way around. However many people believe the girl and refuse to believe my best friend. The girl also smashed my best friend’s very expensive laptop and even refused to apologize and pay my best friend. The girl also sabotaged my best friends graduate school application; as a result, my best friend will no longer be admitted to the prestigious graduate school.
My best friend has been thinking for an act of revenge, it so happens that the girl’s ex-boyfriend is finishing his thesis and there is no other copy of his thesis. To deliver his vengeance my best friend decided to destroy the one and only thesis file.

The Argument

His ex-girlfriend treated him badly to the extent of sabotaging my best friends graduate school application, implying that that he would have a dim hope to reach his dreams. To revenge himself, my best friend must destroy the one and only thesis file of his ex-girlfriends’ ex-boyfriend.

The Moral Issue

The problem involved the moral issue of delivering vengeance, is delivering vengeance right? Or, wrong? Its like this, if my best friend destroys his ex-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend’s one and only thesis file, does the act he committed morally wrong. On the other hand, is it morally right? Is the act morally justified? Is it morally permissible even logically right?

The Theory

In solving the problems, people use several Ethical Theories. I personally use the Theory of Act Utilitarianism.
In Act Utilitarianism, we consider the consequences of the act, if it results to the greatest good for the greatest number of people, what is good in Utilitarianism is happiness, pleasure, or what is advantageous. We divide happiness in different levels. The first level is physical happiness, we are made happy by physical contentment or what is advantageous to our physical self, and for example in a feast, we are happy because we have a lot of food. Intellectual happiness is what is higher than physical happiness, since it is not only contentment or what is advantageous for our physical self but for our intellectual self, we put our intellectualism as higher than our physicality for example when we have a good grade. The highest kind of happiness is the spiritual happiness, in it we consider our spiritual self not only our physical and intellectual self, we consider what is our contentment and what is advantageous for our spiritual self.
What is right in Utilitarianism is maximizing what is good, which is happiness. The moral principle is to maximize what is act for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In Act Utilitarianism, we consider the consequences of the act; will it hurt the greatest number of people? As opposed to Rule Utilitarianism, which consider the consequences of the rule we use to act; if the rule is applied would it bring the greatest good for the greatest number of people? While Kantian Ethics value Rationality, and the result when the act become a universal rule in determining the acceptability of an act; will it give rise to contradictions?
In Act Utilitarianism, we compare the consequences of the act and the not doing it. For example we have a moral problem like this, we badly need a high grade in a General Education course lets say English 1 but the problem we forgot to review for the exam, the situation gave us only two choices, to cheat, or not to cheat; in using Act Utilitarianism we compare the consequences of cheating and not cheating. In the process of comparing, we come up with some kind of a table tabulating the consequences of cheating juxtapose to the table with the list of the possible consequences of not cheating, it may look like this:
Cheat Not cheat
• Get high grade.
• If caught we build distrust in our teacher.
:
:
:
:
etc. • Get a low grade.
• Maintain the teachers’ trust.
:
:
:
:
:
etc.

In deciding we choose the act which will give us the greatest good for the greatest number of people, suppose we found out that not cheating will maintain our honor while cheating will only make us ashamed for ourselves, we decide not to cheat.
In using Act Utilitarianism we must know all the possible consequences or at least maximize the number of the possible consequences, there is no recommended number of consequences. In using Act Utilitarianism, we must understand that the consequences we know have a thin probability of happening.
The Argument
In solving the moral problem, we must consider the argument/s involved. My best friend’s argument is:
My best friend’s ex-girlfriend treated him badly to the extent of sabotaging his graduate school application, to avenge himself, my best friend must destroy the one and only thesis file of his ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.
Removing any unnecessary statements, we come up with this argument:
P1: If one is treated badly, the one must avenge himself.
P2: My best friend is treated badly.
_____________________________________________
Conclusion: Therefore my best friend must avenge himself.
When we are going to use symbolic logic we let B as a symbol when one is treated badly, A when one must avenge himself. Using the above argument and notations, we come up with a statement like this:
P1: If B then A
P2: B
____________
C: A
Or
P1: B A
P2: B
________
C: A
When we consider the above statement, we realize that the statement is in the form Modus Ponens that is considered as a valid argument.
We must also analyze the details of the argument, we define badly as something done in extreme, revenge as something done when someone is hurt to make the one who hurt realize what he have done. In inspecting the argument we found out that the argument do not contain any Fallacies of Relevance, Fallacies of Presumptions nor Fallacies of Ambiguity. We now clearly see that the argument is logically correct.




Right or Wrong

The argument is logically correct, but is it morally permissible? Now we will consider the consequences of destroying the one and only thesis file and the possible consequences of not doing it.
Consequences:
Destroy the one and only Thesis file. Do not destroy the one and only Thesis file.
• The ex-girlfriend’s ex- boyfriend will not graduate.
• Best friend will be happy.
• Ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend will not be happy.
• Family of ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend will not be happy.
• Adviser of ex-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend will not be happy. • Ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend will be graduate.
• Best friend will not be happy.
• Ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend will be happy.
• Family of ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend will be happy.
• Adviser of ex-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend will be happy.

As we see in the table, the one we want to be hurt (the ex-girlfriend) will not be hurt since only the ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, his adviser, and his family will be hurt. In the problem the ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend did not do anything wrong to my best friend, he must be left alone.


New Argument

My argument in not destroying the one and only Thesis file is:
Ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend did not do anything wrong, when something did not do something bad we must not deliver vengeance, so my best friend must not revenge himself by destroying the one and only Thesis file of the ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.
When we put the argument in much simpler form we will come up with like this:
Ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend did not do anything bad, when someone did not do something bad we must not deliver vengeance to him (the ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend), so we must not deliver vengeance to him.
In the form of premises and conclusion:
P1: If someone did not do something bad, then we must not deliver vengeance to him.
P2:He (the ex-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend) did not do something bad.
_____________________________________________________
Conclusion: We must not deliver vengeance to him.
In symbolic form using the already stated notations:
P1: If not B then not A.
P2: Not B.
___________________
C: Not A.

Or
P1: NOT B NOT A
P2; NOT B
________________
C: NOT A
My argument is in the form Modus Ponens, and it did not contain any Informal Fallacies, since we have already considered that not destroying the one and only Thesis file is morally permissible. We can therefore conclude that the argument not to destroy the Thesis file, because the ex-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend did not do something bad to us, is logically correct and morally permissible.

The Advice
Since the ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend did not cause something bad, he must be left alone.