Sociology

The theory of morality is well known as Utilitarian. This theory holds the fact that if an action produces pleasure and happiness, then it is termed as right and, if an action produces pain and unhappiness, then it is termed as wrong (Allison, 2001). Utilitarianism has recently played a major role in psychology .It involves analyzing about how people make decisions which increase happiness in their lives. Most psychologist concentrate with increasing happiness because people are more compelled in seeking for happiness rather than minimizing their pain. Before a person makes a decision, there are two motives involved. One of the motives is the approach of the action, which will result, to pleasure, while the other is the withdrawal of the action, which will result to pain. Pain can also be considered in the long-term perspective. Therefore, by engaging in actions that will produce happiness at the moment can also be withdrawn if they shall produce pain in the future.

The theory of morality is characterized by a dominance of critical research and thus offers much basis for critical examination (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various philosophers views on moral ethics as well as offering a critical analysis concerning their theories.

Aristotle Virtue Theory
Aristotles philosophical role is unique in our world since the time people started writing philosophical articles. He highlights the relevance of practically living in an ethical way rather than the theoretical part of it. His major interest is creating awareness to the society about the virtues that can enable someone to have a happy life  (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009). His writing is encountered with many challenges, which can sometimes be resolved by her virtue theory. Nevertheless, some of her theories are unsolvable and requires other philosophers to intervene.

The theory of Aristotle of fulfillment is bias on the context that intellectuals, mostly philosophers lives are more fulfilling than non-intellectuals are. This is highly criticized, as this is not the case with the non-intellectuals. Nevertheless, this can be resolved by Aristotle virtue theory when he states that whatever thing you endeavor to do with an aim of achieving the end result can result to happiness (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009)

Therefore, even the unprofessional job such as a farmer who grows crops receive lifes satisfaction rather than engaging himself with philosophical work that tries to define the meaning of happiness, which can even cause adverse effect to the farmer by not being happy at all. Therefore, if the farmers crops grow and he gets the fruits of his labor, then this results to happiness in his life.

Aristotle points out that in order for a person to have happiness he must have a function to live for. He gives an example for tools such knives, which have a sole purpose of cutting (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009). However, his theory seems not to solve this issue because human beings do not have to have functions in order to be happy. If they ought to have one, what then would be the function of a human being What criteria would be used to know the function of a human being and to know when one is deviating from the function of his or her existence

There are still objects with more than one function, which also seems to make his theory controversial. An example of this is a corkscrew, which has a bottle opener and screw for cocking the wine. Therefore every object does not have a unique function. He could have concluded that there are objects, which are multi purpose.

Aristotle continues to state that a person who has a good fortune enjoys a happy life by stating that people who lack wealth, power, or good looks are less happy and live a less prosperous living (Lyones, 1994). This is contradictory with what he states about the purpose, and it cannot be solved by his theory because he states that if someone has an objective that he has set for himself which can exclude power, good looks or friends, and meets to the point of his objective, then he is a happy person.

The theory of the mean the mean doctrine does not help us when he points out the virtuous direction that is most appropriate for someone to take. Therefore, his doctrine seems unsupportive when handling some situations. Still we can say that in some cases, we try to make our judgments by using the mean between two situations.

According to Aristotle, virtue is classified into two categories
Character

Intellect
Intellect virtue, which includes wisdom, can be further subdivided into theoretical and practical reasoning. While Character virtue includes courage and a persons temperance, which are as a result of one,s habit (Lyones, 1994). Wisdom is generally known to regulate virtue because as mature people, we are independent on our own thinking. When wisdom is combined with our habits, which are obtained from influence by environment, it leads to virtuous ethics. Thus our emotional response towards a certain situation changes with our reasoning skills.

Aristotle therefore distinguishes four kinds of people
Virtuous - These are the people who enjoy doing what is right and they do it without hesitation or without a dilemma (Lyones, 1994).

Continent have to overcome one or several conflicts before doing their virtuous acts.
Incontinent Face many dilemmas and challenges but are unable to overcome them in order to do the virtuous actions, and
Vicious do not see the benefit of doing virtuous acts.

Therefore, ethical morality can be defined as a mean between two vices, where one of the excess and other is of deficiency (Allison, 2001). It is choosing between character and nature. For something to be virtuous, it has to be influenced by the correct type of feeling at the right time and place and directed to the right and targeted person in the right manner. These feeling that influence the virtuous acts may include anger, pleasure, and pity among others.

Before someone is compelled to do a certain act, he normally undergoes a situation of having a feeling that lies midway of excessive amount and deficient amount of a feeling. Therefore, in order to have a virtue, one has to act and put it into practice because virtuous acts are practical and not theoretical (Aristotle, Ross,  Brown, 2009)

Kants Theory
Kant who is also a moral psychologist has moral theories that seem to face challenges of different views and opinions from other psychologist. One of these differences is the suicide theory. In this theory, Kant claims that we live in order to drive the improvement of life and actions are influenced by our good motives, that is, self love (Allison, 2001).  This creates room for objection since self-love is there to boost life. The suicide victim cannot describe his motive as self-love but as self-hatred. He does this because he predicts or is anticipating suffering. He conclude that if something is not appealing , then  destroying or killing it serves as an improvement, therefore justifying suicide. This may be objected because the function of self-love is promotion of ones happiness and prevent one suffering. Therefore, if a person destroys himself, he does not get a chance of promoting happiness. It is not solvable with his morals since someone who commits suicide his motive cannot be self-love but does so out of suffering or having an anticipation of it.

Allison (2001) still claims that death penalty violates the rule of human right to life thus contradicting himself. This gives room for his critics because destroyers of life such as diseases are evil. Thus the aim of life is evading anything that causes or destroys life.

Another challenge is that Categorical imperative which only informs us of the circumstances that we are supposed to act on, but does not tell us what we are supposed to act on while our main aim is on what action we should perform. It is therefore supposed to define the moral principle uniquely without leaving us with too many alternatives to do so, hence, leaving us disappointed.

The issue of keeping promise creates a room for a challenge because he states that the breaking a promise would be impossible because it will ruin this institution (Allison, 2001). This is an empirical hypothesis since promises will continue to exist even as much as people continue to break and disguise them. It is only the wishing part of not breaking will arise in order to curb the situation.
There is also a challenge when Kant implies that all human beings seek for their faculties to be developed when he stated that talents are given to human for his purpose (Allison, 2001). This cannot be true since some people are not self-motivated and have to be pushed in order to recognize their talents.

In the case of helping others, Kant claims that if a person is willing to help, then he is willing to receive some help in return. If he withholds his aid to others, then it would be unethical to ask for aid from others also. He concludes by stating that the people that do not give help neither ask for help because it is an immoral act (Allison 2001). However, this contradicts with the human nature since it is not possible to refuse help because you do not give help to others. Nevertheless, everyone would certainly in one way or another want to receive help. Therefore, the law can work selectively without applying to the whole package.

Categorical imperative
Morality depends on the rationality of goodwill. Reason works by being given a will, and this is known as imperative. If an action is good and necessary in itself, it is represented by categorical comparative. Its basic characteristic is that it is being universally applicable and all rational being are answerable to it in regardless of your group (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009).

One cannot put a moral law if it does not qualify as a universal law and is applicable to all rational beings. Therefore, there is no exemption for any person. When one comes out with a moral law and wants it to be comparative, it must be universally acceptable. The law should treat humanity as an end to the mean not a means to the end (Aristotle, Ross  Brown, 2009). For example, life insurance does not aim at meeting the end since it serves to the extend of compensation after one dies and treating a person as a means of obtaining money rather than the mean being the person himself (Allison, 2001). Therefore, it cannot be a universal law. We should give ourselves laws, and the will, which is subject to the law, should decide for itself what universal law to put in place.

Mills theory of morality
Mill is a psychologist who is found to have criticized the utilitarian discipline of the Christianity. He has criticized the spirit the moral ethics of doing unto other what you would like them to do unto you as well as loving your neighbors as you love yourself. He urges that he can brings happiness to quite a number of people and does not want to put his happiness above anothers since doing so may lead to a dilemma. By living in a neighborhood of 83 of them being drug abusers, he could make them happy by supplying them with cheap drugs but feels uncomfortable doing that (Lyones 1994)

According to him, his Godless interpretation of doing unto others what you would like them  to do unto you can include lying, stealing and even killing  which can lead to happiness of a great number of people. He asks whether this is a responsible action since godliness forbids such acts of theft, lies, or murder, therefore stating that the Godliness offers a contradiction (Lyones, 1994).

He continues to ask whether God makes rules to see if we are able to obey them, or whether he makes rules that result to happiness, or whether he wants us to look at these rules for solutions in his laws. Mills claims that what God rules should be ethical if they fulfill or meet the ends in a supreme degree that would bring happiness.

Mills concludes that improvement should be sort after and if we cannot know or see the consequences of our actions, we have an obligation of following the rules that have been established some time ago (Lyones, 1994). Each rule should be underlined according to the effects of happiness that it produces and the rules so far that have come down are the rules of philosophers as well as the rules for morality

However, there are objections to Mills theory and one of them being that, it is impossible to use Mills theory since one is forced to make predictions of the consequences of the action .Since we are not able to make this predictions , we can therefore not able to use the Mills theory and thus making it incorrect (Lyones, 1994). Mills responds by claiming that the purpose of a theory is to explain the reason why actions are permissible, which Mills theory does. If people are not able to carry out a prediction, it does not mean that the theory is false.

The other criticism is that Mills theory ignores many morals that a moral theory would not leave out and considers only the consequences of the actions. In his response he claims that morals are put into consideration indirectly in relation to the consequences of the actions.
Mills theory allows for injustice by saying that some unjust practices are tolerable. He respond using his theory that his obligation is work in a defensive manner claiming that it is worth to engage in an unjust act that would benefit,  rather than justice system that would results to poor achievements such of death due to hunger.

The moral heroism required for Mills theory claims that we should perform actions that have consequences for everyone and stop giving ourselves preferences in criticizing the Christians who say that this is not a moral requirement from them and the reasons why people give to their closest person is because they know and understand their needs well. However, Mills response to this is that the non-profitable organizations such as the Red cross and the World vision. They provide us with information about the needs of various people, which can include even their contacts, various ways of helping them such as writing a check to the agencies and refutes their claim that is if someone engages himself with helping the strangers he might put his life on jeopardy. This could be due to the fact that he will not be in a position of help his family, by claiming that people can offer to help their family partly as well as help the strangers partly.

 Mills holds a theory that refuses to prohibit any action because the moment you prohibit any action in one circumstance or another you might want to use that action in order to yield the best results. Mills theory responds to this by claiming that wrong is described as an action having terrible results, and if any action produces good results then it should be permissible.

Mills theory looks at the utilitarian part by evaluating a number of outcomes in different situations. These circumstances can include whether to be a vegetarian, whether to be taking liquor or not, and or how many to take, whether to complete working on an assignment or not, whether to spend the holiday in a home country or in a foreign country, among other evaluations (Lyones, 1994).

Thereafter, his theory suggests that, we should list the advantages as well as the disadvantages of every action in order to come up with an analysis of the moral duty of every situation.

Mills argument is a quality measurement of happiness rather than the quantity with an underlining statement that the quality can be measured with the latter. In expounding his point he states that human being dissatisfaction exceeds a pigs satisfaction. Or rather Socrates dissatisfaction exceeds a fools satisfaction. He claims that a fool or a pig cannot argue over this because they know it is a fact. Therefore, he looks what it means or who you are by the end of the day.

Unlike Kants moral theory, Mills theory focuses on the end rather than the means. He claims that pleasure can be differentiated by its quality and that pleasure is not always good but can also be bad besides it quantity. Furthermore, he claims that even though people have the knowledge of the negative effects later of the high quality pressure, they would prefer it to lower quality.

Kant fails to agree with his perception of moral theory by claiming that consequences are unpredictable in some circumstances and therefore should not be used in the judgment of a moral theory (Lyones, 1994). However, Mill sticks to his theory claiming that he is able to evaluate act as well as agent. He claims that if a motive is properly evaluated, then the agent can also be evaluated as well. He claims that a person can have good motives and perform an immoral action.

This provides the evidence that the end justifies the means and therefore, he uses experience or a scientific analysis of the consequences of certain actions. If an action will result to a justifiable means, then it does not matter what injustice you do in order to achieve the good. He describes this even in terms of pressure by stating that men would engage themselves in sensual acts, which could result to ill health. Therefore, concluding that the pleasure of this act resulting to the harm of health in future is not justifiable. His evaluation of morals depends on the production of pressure or pain produced in the later hours or days. He therefore concludes that our moral duty is performing the action that produces the best consequences among the alternatives and we have an obligation of increasing pressure and reducing sufferings (Allison, 2001).