Reflection paper about your recent pandemic experience involving at least 3

ethical theories

This pandemic experience is indeed remarkable. As a matter of fact, as we are

discussing about variety of ethical theories, I’ve thought of some experiences that I encounter
involving these theories. These are mainly: utilitarianism, deontology theory, and categorical
imperative.
The first experience that I am about to share involves the theory of utilitarianism. One thing
that I learned with regards to utilitarianism is that: it is something that, for my perspective, it’s
somehow shallow. Actually, it was mentioned that utilitarianism is choosing what makes the
majority happy, even if you have to sacrifice the happiness of one. A particular action is right if it
contributes to the happiness of many. Something like this happened on me during my pandemic
experience. There’s this day when I was really exhausted and couldn’t have the energy to fight or
argue with anyone, but had to, because an acquaintance of mine got into an argument where she
was bashed by multitudes of people because of her opinion. Their topic was art—art commissions
to be specific. She said that, before accepting art commissions—this is the art where you have
paid for— you have to practice well first. She claims that an artist must devote her time and best
in doing his masterpiece. Hence, before doing or accepting art commissions, an artist must
practice first. She really has a point, because commissions are like serving food to a particular
customer. Before cooking a dish, you have to know how to cook the dish well first, in order to
satisfy the customer and give the service they’ve paid for. There’s this guy whom she’d had
argued with. This guy is the commissioner artist who made his clients paid a large amount of
money yet draw an art that is somehow isn’t worth of the price that has been paid to him. He
argues that it’s fine if you’re practicing while doing art commissions. If you really look at his art—
the digital portrait of the clients—it really lacks proportion. And not to be biased, the drawing is
somehow similar to the skill of a grade-schooler. I guess, he posted that in order to create a chaos.
His argument is really futile compared to my friend’s argument. However, this guy has a multifold
of followers in Facebook and other social media, So the ending is like, my friend was the one who
is criticized in a way that u can never imagined. Other people also jumped-in in their conversation,
saying that my friend is the one who is at fault at this. For me, this situation is applicable for the
ethical theory named “utilitarianism”. My friend who was criticized was like the single person who’s
been abandoned because majority got a similar opinion. In this kind of situation, it doesn’t matter
who is right, or whose opinion is lawful—it’s just the battle between whose opinion favors the
choice of majority.
The next pandemic experience that I was about to share involves the deontology theory.
To have a recap first, deontology theory refers to an ethical theory where the basis of someone’s
actions whether it is good or right is distinguished whether he fulfilled or duty or not. This
experience is not related to me personally, but is related socially. I’ve encountered this one on
one of the social media platforms—Facebook. We all know that war on drugs is what the present
administration mainly advocates, right? There are tons of civilians that were identified as
innocents—due to lack of evidence and proof— yet some policemen mistakenly shoot them.
These policemen’s believers claims that the policemen did not do anything wrong—because of
course, they are just human too. Imperfect entities capable of doing mistakes. Aside from that,
they also claim that these policemen are just doing their duty―shoot everyone whom they think
violates the law. For me, I really view it as an injustice sense of judgment. We all know that these
people are just doing their duty, but it doesn’t mean that they have the authority to take innocent
lives. This is also why I become skeptic about this deontology theory. I guess, the duty that this
theory was referring to is somehow vague.
Another example of the experience that I can relate to this theory, is the experience I got
after indulging myself in the book that I am reading. The book title was “To Kill A Mockingbird”. In
this book, there’s a lawyer who is assigned to defend the innocent black American who was
accused of raping a white woman. The lawyer is indeed a man of dignity, so even if he is white,
he believes that all the proof and evidence imply that this black folk he was defending is indeed
not guilty of his crime. However, because racism exists in that fiction world, the judge who was
assigned in the trial was commanded to give a final verdict of making the innocent black man as
guilty. Upon reminiscing this scene in a book. it really made sense to me that this scene is also
an example of deontology theory. We all know that the judges or lawyers, or anyone in the civil
service, made an oath that they were serving and saying the Truth, and only the Truth, yet if they
lie because they were given a duty to lie, their unlawful actions can be neglected.
 The last theory that concerns this pandemic experience of mine is somehow related to
virtue ethics. We all know that virtue ethics is one of the major theories in ethics. Virtue
ethics mainly deals with the honesty and morality of a person. It states that practicing good habits
such as honesty, generosity makes a moral and virtuous person. It guides a person without
specific rules for resolving the ethical complexity. During the quarantine, we’ve been locked down
in our province in Bicol region. My father and brother were left here in manila, but me, my mother,
and the rest of my siblings went to province. One thing I remembered when we were staying there
is the situation where my honesty was tested. The scene is like this: there’s this medicine which
is located in a breakable glass, which my sister unintentionally fell it into the floor. My mother
asked us who break it. I said I didn’t know for it will create chaos between my mother and sister.
One thing that really intrigues me is how can we justify ourselves using virtue ethics, when this
theory is already complicated itself. This theory claims that thou shall not lie. I really know this
law, but what if, you have to lie, for the sake of peace? Is it really wrong way to act? What if you
have to lie for the sake of someone’s safety? Do we really have to be controlled by this called
virtue ethics just to justify our honesty and integrity?
This pandemic experience is indeed remarkable and many scenes and situations are also
applicable to other ethical theories.