Trenton's Ethical Blog

Climate change is a problem that affects not just every human on earth but every species on earth. However, there seems to be a constant game of three-way finger-pointing of which group needs to lead the charge to combat climate change. This stare-down between the people, government officials, and corporations. This brings up the ethical question of who is responsible for guiding environmental change and to what intensity should they have over certain environmental issues.  Governments around the globe have made many efforts to combat the growing amount of trash their citizens consume. For example, China built a mega-dump that was supposed to be filled by 2044. However, the mega-dump filled 25 years ahead of schedule. The cause of this dilemma would be China’s citizens’ purchasing patterns. Therefore, the citizens of China should make different consumer choices and purchase items that are less harmful to the climate and/or produce less trash.  Overall, it may be co...

Latin America has been able to help their people by adopting universal healthcare. As a result, they have been able to stop more people from going into poverty and their populations are living longer. This poses the question does the government have a duty to provide healthcare to all its citizens. In an ideal world, every government would provide its people with free health care to eliminate a major expense every human experience in their lives. However, many countries claim that universal healthcare is inefficient.  The argument for a country to not provide healthcare to its citizens is the way many countries try to cover that cost. Specifically, taxes are raised for all people so that whenever a citizen of that country needs medical care they do not have to pay. As a result, many individuals do not want to pay for a service when they do not believe they will use it. However, a utilitarian approach may be the most convincing argument to refute that way of thinking. B...

When reading through the collection of articles related to political protests two ethical questions kept being proposed: when is it ethical for a protest to be violent and how should an ethical government act? This is a loaded question because it focuses on two distinct agencies: the government of a country and the people within that country. These two agencies have tension that is seemingly always created by governmental action to stay in control of their people.  While reading the articles it was clear to see that people within the countries of political unrest were provoked by governmental action. For example, in Hong Kong protests began when activists saw mainland China passing a bill that was seen as an erosion of Hong Kongs’ rights and autonomy (Quinn). These native people in Hong Kong want to keep their political freedom to make their own laws and elect their own leaders. However, China has been using political intervention and physical force through Hong Kong police ...