Persuasive Essay: Will Studying Ethics Make You a Better Person?

To simply answer the first question of will studying ethics make you a better person, no. I do not feel that studying ethics will make you a better person because there is a difference between learning content and putting the knowledge into practice in our everyday lives. Throughout this essay, I will be addressing philosophers James Rachel, Immanuel Kant, Alasdair Norcross, and Peter Singer to draw my conclusions to why studying ethics doesn’t make you a better person.

We can begin this debate by asking the follow up question of are you a better person universally or by relativism. Though I am not a firm believer of either, I feel that ethical relativism is more convincing and welcoming to different communities to define what a better person is. In James Rachel’s criticism to ethical relativism, it poses the question if it’s right for Eskimos to kill babies to maintain resources and the population of their own kind. We believe that universally it isn’t right to kill off a baby, but if the Eskimos choose to not kill their own babies, they wouldn’t be able to sustain and survive in the capacity that they can hold. This is a small community so it may feel like a small impact, but it’s a stimulation to greater populations such as China. China’s One Child Policy has impacted many Chinese citizens to be punished, forced abortions, or have birth in secrecy—resulting in the overpopulation and the Chinese government not having enough resources to provide life for all. I’m sure that the majority of people don't want to kill a baby, but sometimes accidents or unwanted pregnancies occur and that results in finding solutions to grow as a society. 

In the example that Immauel Kant is well known for applying it as everyday ethics rather than a new theory, that the Golden Rule is to have good intentions and the consequences that come after are not for us to value or put into perspective because we did our part to being a good person. Do we lie that your friend isn’t in the house or do we give the truth to the murderer that your friend is inside the home? The possibility of lying to the murderer and as your friend sneaking out the back door because they know you’re a Kant believer which then by fate they meet outside which then gets your friend killed. So knowing that possibility, do you still choose to lie to tell the truth? Critics and readers who are reading Kant’s philosophy have argued that why would you open the door in the first place in which I agree and in that situation do you choose to be a good person by the study and knowledge of Kant’s philosophy or save your friend who could potentially get killed. It’s a very tough and ethical relativistic situation especially if you really love that friend. 

As Rachel and Kant’s philosophical examples and arguments hold the decision making in a white and black scale, Alasdair Norcross and Peter Singer present a different thinking and analogy to the pondering of whether studying ethics make you into a better person. Norcross gives readers the idea comparison of torturing puppies and factory farmed meat, aren’t they the same? Norcross, professor at University of Colorado Boulder, the United States, where we American citizens prize puppies and dogs as pets and a family member for some. In the land of freedom, we also have resources and accessibility to buying meat at the grocery stores as a source of protein. If we are consuming animal products, why do majority seem to be nonchalant about the idea of it, but if a puppy has being tortured we would be so disheartened and broken to see a cute little baby animal that some sees as a pet and family member. It’s because we put meaning to the puppy. In India where they put meaning and sanctity to cows, they must think Americans are sinners or be disowned for consuming beef. In the process of producing meat, killings of millions of animals are happening everyday. It doesn't differ that the puppy and meats that we consume being tortured makes you a good person, and many can agree that giving the animals a good life before torturing and killing them makes it’s a little more okay for their action.

Singer poses the similar question of if you are willingly to save a child drowning in a pond, you should also be donating to charity for children around the world. The deciding factor is that you are wearing a brand new pair of shoes. To say a shoe is more valuable than a child’s life sounds ridiculous, and in this example Singer presents, they point out a valid reasoning. The shoe can represent wealth donated for charities surrounding helping children around the world. In the perfect world that Singer envisions, for everyone to be that good person, they would sacrifice their shoes and jump in to save the child. For if they do this, they will also donate to charities to help children around the world, however many factors contribute to make this an ethical relativism situation. The person may not be physically or mentally challenged even if it was a small pond. The individual may choose to donate to just children around the world, but may not save the one from the pond and vice versa. How huge organizations that take donations, to what extent is the money really worth and going towards children in need. Is all the money they get from donations all resulting in product and transportation costs or do people within the organization pocket that money. Those are unknowns that I often think about when donating to big organizations. Which would be the most ethical to morally be a good person?

In these examples I draw from the various philosophers, and including both an ethical universal and relativism they help individuals to think about their own decision process when studying ethics, but does it help you to be a better person? Strangely enough, it doesn’t. In such practices like doctors in which their roles are to maintain and restore health through the practice of medicine. Doctors have different practices, different philosophies, and come with different intentions to a patient’s life. Doctors can sabotage and kill patients to relieve the stress of a patient, they can act on their nurses because they’re doing their job incorrectly. Being a doctor doesn’t make you the immediate pass that you are a good person. There will come a position that you will have to tell a harmless white lie to calm the situation down if you know the receiver will get stressed or is being stressed. That creates a gray area in Kant’s philosophical thinking of being a good person, you are lying, however your intentions are good. In mind that I am taking this ethics course, I am still eat meat everyday knowingly that torturing a puppy and torturing a cow to consume protein in my diet. It helps me to put into perspective that they are similar things, the struggle of an animal, but in the society we live in, puppies and cows are given a different significance and connection to the majority. I eat meat, but does that make me a bad person although I’m accomplishing other things in my college career? I don’t think it’s enough to make a call and determine that someone who eats meat is bad because the positive overrides this one action. Of course it doesn’t make it okay, but it does help to make you reflect and think about your actions. Maybe not now, maybe not anytime soon, but I believe unless it is impacting the society as a whole little to no changes will be made to an ethical issue. 

“I donate to charity all the time” says a white privileged wealthy man.  As you should. Share those big bucks with the world. To question Norcross is does it matter how much the individual donates compared to their annual gross income. There is that scale that many people also think about, especially if that person is part of the 1%. Sure, a million dollars is plenty, but out of what? Would they still be considered a better person or a stingy person who chooses not to donate more money? Something I learned in this recent year of doing my taxes is the tax benefits of donating to charity. It ponders another question of do people donate to donate for the greater good or to gain public attention and receive less taxing. 

Although it may be in many people's minds to be a better person, and think if studying ethics will stimulate them to be a better person, sure. Sure, that works. But overall in the majority if they were to study ethics, it doesn't make you a better person. Studying a topic and practicing it is a completely different realm of cause and effect. Take my consumption of meat and my accomplishments out of consuming meat for example. I would like to say it may help you to be more aware of the actions you are doing to justify you being a good or better person, but one shouldn’t define you as a whole. As many things in the world are contradicting with and without context of an idea, ideologies and lifestyles clash if you were to put it into an universal setting. Ethical relativism looks at the differentiation of equity where it is needed. If it is necessary to kill a baby to keep a community from growing, then have that be it. If it entails to lie to avoid the killing of your friend though you’re a Kant believer, then to the best of your abilities make a plan with your friend and save them. Continue to consume meat if it is a viable source part of your diet, and in the long term decrease the amount to lessen the number of tortures for animals. Save that child from the pond despite buying a brand new pair of sneakers or donate to charity, vice versa. How you choose to put action or lie, with good or bad intention, continue or stop, know you will never be a better person in different ways, but you don’t need to study ethics to be a better person.