Showing posts with label wrongings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wrongings. Show all posts

Monday, October 13, 2014

Are all Wrongs Wrongings?

It seems to me plausible that all wrong actions are the wrongings of someone or something.  To wrong someone or something is not to live up to the demands of the worth of that thing or individual.  Disrespect is a good example of a wronging, but disrespecting is certainly not the only way that one can wrong another.  Disrespecting someone--in the immoral instance--is failing to treat the person as having the appropriate worth.  A murderer, as well, is failing to acknowledge the worth of someone.  So the worth of individuals (and perhaps other things) is central to ethics (or should be!).  In contrast, if Utilitarianism is true then there are no wrongings, since the only goods on the Utilitarian view are goods which can be maximized such as subjective, desiderative states like pleasure.  There are right actions and wrong actions, but there's no place in the theory for wrongings or the violating of natural rights.  (There are legal rights for utilitarians but not natural or inherent rights).