The Conclusion for my Introduction to Ethics

Now I want to give a conclusion to my previous posts about ethics. In the last few weeks, I introduce some of the theories in philosophy to discuss trolley problems, including deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics and existentialism.

In my opinion, for those perspectives that try to explain the morality, we should put the emphasis on what is the controversial ideas lying in the problem instead of what is right to do. In other words, our goal is to clarify the controversy rather than to tell right from wrong. And we may finally find out that it is more important to see through the problems than to solve them for most of the disputes, controversies and dilemmas we are confronted.

After all, like what I said in the previous post, whenever we are faced with some dilemmas, we seem to make a choice as if we were throwing a die. The final choice seems to be random and we seems to hesitate our mind in a mixed feeling. Like Robert frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, we stand at the intersection of a diverged road in the woods. We can’t make up our mind to choose which to travel, and we may eventually take the one less traveled by or the contrary. We may tell with a sign somewhere ages and ages hence, but whatever, choosing which to travel isn’t the most important things here; the essential part here is to clarify the difference between two roads, and to acknowledge the difference intrinsically.

And at last, let me repeat the emphasis again: Most of the time, as we are faced with some controversies, if we can see through the essence of them, then whatever the result might be, our heart will not be filled with hatred, and that is enough.