Ethics in Social Science Assignment: Analysis of Ethical Theories

This assignment explores various ethical theories within the context of social science. It begins by defining and analyzing universal ethical egoism, providing an example and discussing its strengths and weaknesses. The assignment then delves into the divine command theory, explaining its principles and offering an illustrative scenario, alongside its advantages and disadvantages. Confucian role theory is examined, focusing on family-centric ethics, its strengths in promoting positive qualities, and its potential drawbacks. Ethical absolutism and moral relativism are contrasted, with examples to clarify their differing approaches to morality. Finally, the assignment addresses determinism, outlining psychological determinism and its implications, including a discussion of free will and related challenges. Each section includes references to support the arguments and theories presented.

ETHICS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
STUDENT DETAILS

SOCIAL SCIENCE 1
Q1.
Universal Ethical egoism is the psychological normative position which defines that all
person should pursue their interest exclusively. According to this, a person should treat
himself with higher regards than others (Czupala, 2013). Its principle is "Everyone should do
what is in his interests" (Czupala, 2013). For example: When two persons X and Y are
working on the same case and both have 50% partnership in completing the case.
Responsibility of each person is to do their work with accuracy. X identifies that Y conducted
mistake in various part. According to this theory, X should only concentrate on his part.
Instead of correcting the mistake he should think that Y will get low marks and he will get
more marks. Strength of this theory is that a person can entitle with more benefits than others
(Czupala, 2013). The weakness of this theory is that it makes a person selfish, instead of
thinking about other people, environment and world as a whole, he/she only cares about their
self-interest (Czupala, 2013).

SOCIAL SCIENCE 2
Q2.
Divine command theory states that any action will be counted as morally good if it is
commanded by God (Koons, 2012). People are well aware that in order to make themselves
morally strong they need to accept the importance of God or supreme power (Koons, 2012).
For example, A person decides to read all the scriptures and book which holds information
about the divine power of God. After consuming the knowledge in his subconscious mind, it
will be set that God is the one who created this world, God is running this world, eventually,
he is the one who will destroy this world and, in the end, he will again re-create this world.
He is the reason behind every cause and every human is the reflection of God. Strength of
using this theory is that it gives positive vibes to the person and give a ray of rope (Koons,
2012). The identified weakness of this theory is that sometimes people stuck in there thinking
the process and cannot able to identify what is ethical or what is unethical? Therefore, it is
extremely important that a person should use his/her own intelligence before accepting any
command or advice from anyone or from any scriputure.

SOCIAL SCIENCE 3
Q3.
Confucian role theory explains or revolves around respect for family members. A person
feels great when he/she fulfill their family-related objectives (Chen, 2014). This theory also
explains a person’s commitments for the community as a human being. Confucian role theory
is an example of “Role ethics” (Chen, 2014). For example: Serving and helping parents,
taking immediate actions on the words of parents, taking care for family members, hanging
and enjoying with them, feeling happy while nourishes them, etc. Strength of this theory is
that it makes a person liberality, genuineness, empathy, kind disposition and decisiveness. It
makes a person feel proud when he/she completed their family-related responsibility. The
weakness of this theory defines that a person even ready to proses those actions which are
morally not correct, only for the well-being of his/her loved ones (Chen, 2014). Another
weakness is that due to any reason if a person fails in fulfilling his family-related
responsibilities then there are chances that he/she may face depression and anxiety issue
(Chen, 2014).

SOCIAL SCIENCE 4
Q4.
Ethical absolutism describes that actions and direction for self -interest and for self-obsession
are correct even if such action is belonging to illegal and unethical category. Actions like
murder and stealing are viewed as unbiasedly incorrect (Kusch, 2017). Therefore, Absolutist
good hypotheses are deontological, as they don't think about outcomes. Example of ethical
absolutism theory incorporates Kant's Categorical Imperative and Divine Command Theory
(Kusch, 2017).
Interestingly, moral relativism sees virtues as totally in consideration for the society and
community (Kusch, 2017). By ensuring this it can be concluded that any activity or taken
action by a person will be correct if such action upon the specific circumstance (such as
culture) (Kusch, 2017). Moral relativism theory may consider the results of good activities
when choosing on the off chance that they are correct or wrong. Example of this incorporates
Classical Utilitarianism and Situation Ethics (Kusch, 2017).

SOCIAL SCIENCE 5
Q5
Determinism is the philosophical conviction that all occasions are resolved totally by existing
causes. According to the Daniel Badar, Psychological determinism has two forms: one is
orectic psychological determinism which defines that human always responds upon their
greatest drive and their drive is specified for their self-interest (List, 2014). On the other
hand, Rational psychological determinism defines that human should act according to after
their strongest and best reason (List, 2014).
For example, a person's decision can be changed based upon the implication of these theories.
X thinks that he could earn much more money if he started selling nicotine or tobacco related
products in his outside his college. Here, he is not thinking for any illegal business but his
idea is not appropriate as per the health concern of people. He is taking this action only for
his self-interest.
Free will under this theory is firmly connected to the ideas of good duty, acclaim, blame, sin
and different decisions that are freely chosen. It is additionally associated with the ideas of
counsel, influence, consultation and denial (List, 2014). There are numerous concerns which
describe the challenges incurred in this pattern. Some conceive free will concepts provides
ability makes choices on decisions in which the result has not been controlled by past
occasions (List, 2014). Thus, it creates major challenges in the implication of this theory
(List, 2014).

SOCIAL SCIENCE 6
References
Chen, X. (2014) The ethics of self: Another version of Confucian ethics. Asian
Philosophy, 24(1), 67-81.
Czupała, A. (2013) Ethical ideology as a predictor of ethical decision making. The
International Journal of Management and Business, 4, pp.82-111.
Koons, J. (2012) Can God’s goodness save the divine command theory from euthyphro?.
Qatar: Georgetown University in Qatar.
Kusch, M. (2017) Epistemic relativism, scepticism, pluralism. Synthese, 194(12), 487-490.
List, C. (2014) Free will, determinism, and the possibility of doing otherwise. Noûs, 48(1),
pp.156-178.