Answer

Ethics refers to the moral principles that govern the behavior of an individual or a group of people in society. Ethic distinguishes what is considered morally right from wrong by an individual or a society. For both an individual and the society, their values and beliefs plays an integral role in what they consider to be ethical or not. For instance, in some societies, it is unethical to maintain eye contact while speaking to adults. On the other hand, other societies approve of and require their speakers to maintain eye contact during communication regardless of the age of the person one is peaking to. Therefore, ethics is not an absolute concept but a relative one. The relative nature of ethics has resulted in the several schools of ethical thought which all try to explain how actions can be judged as ethical or unethical.  The different schools of ethical thought offer compelling and at time conflicting reasons for the basis of judging the ethics of an action. The first school of ethical though is deontological ethics. It is a normative ethical theory that asserts that the morality of an action should be judged based on the action itself and not the outcome of the action (Österberg,2019).  Deontological   ethics therefore revolves around the rules. Proponents of deontological ethics argue that people should strobe to know the rules of what is right in their society and live by the rules. They have a virtue and duty to abide by the rules.  For instance, in most societies, murder is frowned upon and considered unethical., however, in the modern world, there are several caveats placed that have given some people the justification to take life such as leveraging the argument of self-defense. Proponents of deontological ethics assess the morality of an action by looking at the action its self.  In the case of murder, they will look at the murder and establish that it is wrong. Therefore, regardless of the excuse given for conducting the murder, the act will be unethical.  Apart from deontological ethics, there are consequentialist   school of ethical thought such as utilitarian ethics.  Proponents of utilitarian ethics assert that the morality of an action is judged based on the consequence of the action.  Actions whose consequences maximizes the happiness of the highest number of people are considered ethical. However, those whose actions result in pain to the highest number of people are considered unethical.  For instance, in act utilitarianism, a person who shares videos and music through online platforms to avail the same content to large population of people who needed the services and are too poor to afford is considered ethical.  Even though the action of such a person is illegal since it has breached both domestic and international   intellectual property laws, proponents of act utilitarianism view such an action as moral since it has created happiness to several people who can now access the services they required but could not afford. Therefore, ethics is a relative concept and what is ethical and unethical differs depending on one’s school of ethical thought.