Ethics in the Computer Age

What Actions are Good and How Can we Know


Making decisions is a daily task for individuals. A decision that affects others or one’s self and is deemed “worthy of praise or blame” is considered a moral decision (Edgar, 2003, p. 15). When making a moral decision or taking action, one might wonder, “Are our actions good?” and “How can we know they are good, (the term “good” having the same meaning or connotation as moral, virtuous or right)? Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, Epicurus, Immanuel Kant, and Aristotle, all have contributed to mankind, their view of what actions are good and by what guidelines one can know they are good.
John Stuart Mill, referred to as one of the fathers of Utilitarianism (the theory that consequences of an action determine its morality), claimed that:
“The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to prom...