While reading the article “Thinking Ethically” by the Santa Clara Markkula Center, I learned the five approaches to dealing with moral issues. These include the Utilitarian, Rights, Fairness or Justice, Common-Good, and Virtue Approaches. These approaches can help decide how to solve moral dilemmas by using what values are important to you. 

The Common-Good approach reminds me of group projects I used to be a part of. In highschool, I used this approach the most often as I felt I should think of the whole group in every decision I made. This caused me to act selflessly, sometimes sacrificing my potential gain. I have used all of these approaches in life, this is just one example. 

These approaches reminded me of a book I read called 1984 by George Orwell. In this book, the government controlled everything and everything was being watched. The book consisted of people who thought they were better than everyone else. This specifically ties into the virtue approach because in the book they valued different virtues to alter everyone’s thinking. These virtues changed the way people dealt with balmoral dilemmas. 

This framework of approaches can be applied to the world and its many controversies. There are many ethical debates that focus on these many approaches to help come to a conclusion. For example, AI has been a heated debate for years. This debate follows the ethical problem solving questions mentioned in the article. What are the benefits and harms? These methods of solving ethical problems allow us to consider all details. 

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, 2021, https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/