Ashley Clerrobrun

Intro to Ethics
Erli Mertika
23 October 2015
Summary
As a group we decided to choose the Should Brenda get an abortion? scenario. To begin with,
we introduced Brenda as being a straight A student, strongly involved in her church, on the
soccer team, and all around Good Girl. She got out of character one night and decided to go to a
party. Things went bad and she ended up getting raped later on that night. Months went by and
she found out she was pregnant and went to an abortion clinic to get a consultation. A bunch of
her classmates found out and began to discuss the dilemma over lunch. Kush, who was
representing virtue ethics, and I were for the abortion but for different reasons. He believed that
she should get it because in the end she is still a good person, regardless of the consequences she
will face. Also, her virtous qualities like her being an avid church goer makes her a good person.
I brought up the fact that if there was no God or higher power, would she still be considered a
good person? There is no such as a God, so her being moral is pointless. Everything is permitted
since there is no one to condemn her for her sins. If she refutes the ides of there being a God then
she has the ability of freewill, making her choice a lot easier. Another argument that was made
my Rahee, representing Natural Rights Theory, was that everyone has the right to life. I refuted
this by saying there is no proof to the Natural Rights Theory. Nothing is natural at all, it was just
a group of statements, which are based on moral propositions. But in morality you cant find
truth in it like you can with a math problem or with a question describing the world, such as,
Florida is a state. These are statements that can use a scientific approach to get an answer.
Therefore statements like Brenda getting an abortion is wrong, cannot be true or false. The
Utilitarianism argument was introduced saying that her keeping the baby would create more
happiness for the family, therefore she not get an abortion. I intervened by saying how does one
measure happiness? How can you determine if one form of happiness would be weighed greater
than the other? No one knows the future, so its impossible and ridiculous to try to weigh the
happiness of an unborn baby. Or weigh the happiness of everyone affected by the situation. If it
was even possible to weigh happiness, do humans only live to increase pleasure and decrease
pain? It also disregards all intentions and focuses merely on the consequences of the actions. In a
utilitarianism perspective the purpose of life is that and only that, but there is no purpose in life. I
made my closing argument stating that there is no higher power, God, or a reason to be moral at
all, no such thing as moral standards for her to be judged by her peers. Her decision to get the
abortion would neither be moral or immoral.