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My class is currently doing an ethics unit, we are constantly faced with the question what do you think, and why do you think that? There are so many answers to this question that I don’t ever know where to start.
When I started researching for my first assignment, with the topic “are there any circumstances where it is right to kill someone?” my initial instinctive response was no, of course there are no circumstances that can justify killing someone. But then thinking about it, there are circumstances where people do kill and feel that it has been justified. War, assisted suicide, abortion, death penalty, withdrawing life support and these are just a few examples.
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My opinion is different on the morality of all of these topics. I think that life would be a lot easier if there were universal rules on these issues, and some people even claim that there are. Most religions say that killing is wrong, yet many people die for their religion and historically wars have been started over religion. I think that when assisted suicide is done with the right controls and strenuous psychological evaluations as part of them they can be morally right. When it comes to abortion the debate isn’t really about whether it is right to take a life but rather about when life starts. I’m pro choice, but I do think that abortions later in pregnancy should only be done if the mother’s life is at risk. I do not agree with death penalty, I don’t think that it is fair, especially when it comes to serial killers because, I feel like one life cannot repair the damage that they have caused. I think for them lack of freedom is more of a punishment than death. I do however, think that withdrawing life support can absolutely be justified and I myself do not want to be kept alive by machines with no chance of recovery.
Here you can see that I have very different opinions on all of these even thought the basic question is the same, is it okay to take a life? But where do these opinions come from? Is it my parents opinions that I have internalised? Is it the school I went to as a child? Is it the society or the country I grew up in? Is it ingrained in me as a human? I don’t think it’s the last one because then we would all have the same moral values, which we know is not the case but is it a bit of all the others?
So what I’ve come to realise, is that the only answer I can give, when my lecturer asks what do you think? Is: it depends.
cazroos 