Ethical Controversies, Essay Example

Is it justifiable to perform an act that is not in itself evil but produces mixed consequences, some of them, beneficial and others harmful?

The issue of mixed circumstances is very complicated in itself – people have to make decisions every day and they cannot be sure that the result will be beneficial for everyone surrounding them. We are all urged to conduct some things that may be unpleasant or even harmful for others and we cannot fully eliminate such actions from our daily life. However, the question of moral responsibility is the one raised in such a case – you can be aware of the fact that you are doing harm to others; you may realize that you do not do this deliberately; but the question is whether you feel bad about that.

Here comes the moral responsibility of an individual character – people cannot help affecting others because they all live in the interconnected society. For this reason everyone chooses the level of his personal moral responsibility for his or her actions. It is surely wrong to take over the responsibility for everything happening in the world and attributing it to some individual effects. One should clearly realize that there is some objective reality which he or she does affect but cannot change. Nonetheless, there is also the part of reality which we affect and can change, and if we ignore the situation and act in an ignorant way then we can be judged for this and can be considered guilty. But in other cases it is immoral to think that every person has to think about others putting their own welfare at stake.

Another situation can happen in which we intentionally commit some actions that can be evil or good for others. In such case everyone should honestly confess to him- or herself whether they possessed the information about the mixed consequences and their character or not. In case they did, there would surely be their individual moral responsibility for the actions they committed. If not, then it is impossible to blame the person for the things he or she objectively could not have known.