Human beings often find themselves in the various dilemmas that require them to decide on what they perceive as the best course of action. Such has been Thomas’s case, who had to choose between spending his only remaining $5 on either buying candy that he did not necessarily need versus donating the money to charity. Singer’s work in applied ethics would disapprove of Thomas’s decision to buy candy with his remaining $5 after shopping instead of donating. Singer’s ethical philosophy is primarily focused on utilitarianism (Singer, 2013). According to the utilitarianist ethical perspective, appropriate decisions in the case of moral dilemmas are those that maximize the universal good among people. Looking at Thomas’s decision to buy candy with his remaining change from Singer’s perspective, he does not uphold a decision that would maximize the happiness and the common good among people (Singer, 2013). Singer’s utilitarianism view would support the donation with the remaining $5 based on its capability to help many people at once rather than Thomas buying candy with the money, which helps just him. That is the basis of Singer’s disapproval of Thomas’s decision to buy candy at the store with his five-dollar change: the fact that his decision only helps him rather than the other people who may be in more of a need than he is.
Ethical egoists, on the other hand, would approve of Thomas’s decision to buy himself candy with his $5 of change instead of donating the amount. According to the ethical egoism perspective, agents of morals act in their self-interests ( Fang & Slavin, 2018) . Thus, the approach believes that people need to put their interests first before those of the other people. Ethical egoism takes a normative stance in morality and leads people into believing that they do not have the moral obligation to pursue the interests of the other people beyond theirs. The perspective further supports the idea of pursuing an activity if it promotes the personal interests of the individual ( Fang & Slavin, 2018) . looking at Thomas’s case, buying the candy promotes his interest even if he does not need to consume it immediately. The assumption is that he can store the candy until he needs it. Since he had only $5 left and the candy costs the exact amount, an ethical egoist argues that it was necessary to use the money for his interests. Contrarily, donating the $5 to charity at the store would go against the ethical standpoint of the model. The main point of defense in Thomas’s decision to buy himself candy according to an ethical egoist is that he is not obligated to be of help to other people, such as by sacrificing his needs and wants for their sake.
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The approach of utilitarianism is different from that of the ethical egoism regarding Thomas’s case and the outside world. The significant disagreement between the two lies in the focus of morality. Utilitarianists argue that the most appropriate application of ethics lies in maximizing the happiness of the highest number of people that an individual can (Singer, 2013). The approach does not appeal to the ethical egoists as they believe that an individual should pursue their interests before others are in the picture ( Fang & Slavin, 2018) . Ethical egoists identify that an individual is not obligated to fulfill the needs and interests of the other people. At the same time, the utilitarianists support people being able to meet the interests of other people out of goodwill before they can fulfill theirs. A fighting ground between the two ethical approaches would be the meaning of happiness. Utilitarianists believe that everyone deserves to be equally happy, and that means that the able ones should find ways to make the less fortunate ones happy as a collective society (Singer, 2013). Ethical egoists primarily differ from the standpoint by advocating that happiness is supposed to be personal. In light of ethical egoism, everyone is responsible for his or her satisfaction. Therefore, ethical egoism differs from utilitarianism.
References
Fang, J., & Slavin, N. (2018). Ethics–Comparing Ethical Egoism with Confucius’s Golden Rule.
Journal of Business and Economic Studies , 22 (1), 17-31.
Singer, P. (2013). A Companion to Ethics . John Wiley & Sons.
