a. Is it right or wrong to steal the iPhone from a fellow student? Give a considered reason for your answer and refer to Woks’, which help you to know what is right or wrong in this case.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term ethics is defined as “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior”. As a result, from an ethical standpoint, the act of stealing an iPhone from a student is classified as an unethical act or behavior. In order to effectively decide whether or not a person’s course of action is ethical, it is important to consider the different ways of knowing, which include emotion, reason and logic, and language, because all of them work together to give us a sense of what is moral and immoral.
When using our emotions, we often pursue our self-interests, and what is most beneficial to us, and them sympathize with the emotions of others to determine how the outcomes will affect them. As a result, our emotions, along with our intuitions that tell us that stealing someone else’s iPhone is immoral, allows us to determine what is ethical and unethical.
Furthermore, our reason and logic also help us to be knowledgeable of what is ethical. This is because our reason and logic allow us to carefully assess and consider the outcomes of certain actions, which ultimately enables us to understand what is morally correct. However, this may not always be the case as our emotions may interfere with our reasoning, and cause us to make unethical decisions. As a result, by using my logical reasoning about the potential consequences of theft, I was able to know that stealing someone else’s iPhone was not correct.
In addition, since language acts as the base to all our thought processes, it is also a very important factor that allows us to decide if something is ethical or not. Without language, we would not be able to discuss what is moral or immoral, nor the importance of ethics.
After referring back to the different ways of knowing that are used in the Theory of Knowledge course, I was able to ultimately make a decision, and know that stealing someone’s iPhone was unethical, and morally incorrect.
b. Would the answer you gave above be true for stealing in all circumstances? Explain your answer in terms of what you know through Woks’.
Yes, the answer that was presented in the question above would be true for stealing in all circumstances. Although in certain contexts, such as in a time of desperate need for food, it might be difficult to determine what morally is right or wrong, the different ways of knowing work in the same manner in all types of stealing.
Ian Barton's Theory of Knowledge 