Ethics Analysis: Female Genital Mutilation and Ethical Theories

This essay examines the ethical complexities of female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice deeply rooted in cultural traditions. The analysis employs three prominent normative ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. The essay argues that FGM is ethically wrong, as it leads to significant complications and suffering for women, contradicting the principles of utilitarianism, which prioritizes actions that maximize overall well-being. The essay also highlights that, from a deontological perspective, FGM violates universal rules and human rights by treating women differently. The essay concludes by asserting that virtue ethics is the most appropriate theory for analyzing this scenario, as FGM disrupts an individual's happiness and well-being, making it an unethical practice. The essay references scholarly sources to support its arguments and emphasizes the importance of considering individual happiness and societal norms when evaluating the ethical implications of FGM.

Running head: ETHICS
Ethics
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Female genital mutilation is a tradition that has been going on in this society for so
many centuries and it is widespread among various cultural background. This analysis will be
based on the normative theory of ethics and usage of the utilitarianism, deontology and
virtue ethics will be used to analyse the issue. This has become a social taboo and lot of
women are suffering due to this phenomenon (Perron et al., 2013). Utilitarianism states if
the consequence of any action right then it the right thing to do. However, people know that
female genital mutilation will lead to a lot of complication later on in their life and still they
force the girls to be circumcised which is ethically wrong (Andrews, 2014). There is no
positive consequence to this action and so this practice can be considered as unethical
practice. There have instances where lot of women have faced complication later on in their
life due to this circumcision and it is unethical to harm people just to maintain their
unscientific meaningless traditions. Thus, according to the Utilitarian theory it is unethical to
mutilate a girl just because of tradition and causing her harm both emotionally and
physically. Deontology is based on the theory of categorical imperative where the rules are
same for everyone. Suppose if someone has the right to protect themselves when attacked it
will be true for everyone in this world. Similarly, when we talk about female genital
mutilation there are lots of parts of society who are against this tradition so there has to
uniformity in rules for women all around (Letwin et al., 2016). There are lot of women who
does not have to go through as it is not included in their tradition. This can be considered as
violence against and is very much unethical is terms of human rights. When women in so
many traditions don not go through mutilation then it is wrong for other women who face this
issue. Virtue ethics considers the key characters of every individual as the key element and it
consist of various parts. The virtue ethics states that if the act is right for the individual and it
brings personal happiness them then the act it ethical (Vaughn, 2015). However, in this
scenario female genital mutilation does not bring any personal happiness to the victim and

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moreover, they are faced with complications later on in their life. Thus, at the point of view
of the virtue ethics this is a totally unethical practice as it disrupts the happiness of an
individual. In this scenario virtue ethics is the most appropriate theory to explain this scenario
where women are forced to mutilation due to societal norms. According to me, out of the
three theories virtue ethics can be considered as the apt theory for analysing the scenario.
Moreover, the act of violence is generated form wrong misconceptions and malpractices of
the society so mutilation of female genitals is an inappropriate act and is unethical in this
context.

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Reference
Andrews, K. (2014). Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s
Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner The Philosophy of Animal Minds,
edited by Robert W. Lurz.
Letwin, C., Wo, D., Folger, R., Rice, D., Taylor, R., Richard, B., & Taylor, S. (2016). The
“right” and the “good” in ethical leadership: Implications for supervisors’
performance and promotability evaluations. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(4), 743-
755.
Perron, L., Senikas, V., Burnett, M., Davis, V., Aggarwal, A., Bernardin, J., ... & Rutherford,
M. (2013). Female genital cutting. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Canada, 35(11), 1028-1045.
Vaughn, L. (2015). Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton &
Company.