Question

2. The world is currently being faced with COVID-19 Pandemic. Owing to this, many countries including Ghana put up measures to help reduce the rate of infections. One of the measures Ghana adopted was a partial lockdown that the President of Ghana announced in some parts of the country and mandatory quarantine of persons who had returned from journey abroad. However, there were reports of non-compliance with these measures among some citizens. One of these instances had to do with a woman who managed to sneak into the room of her husband who was on mandatory quarantine to have a good time with him.

Required Advice the ethicality or otherwise of the act of the woman from the lenses of the following ethical theories: utilitarianism, egoism, golden rule and justice.

Answer 1

The act of woman is wrong because the government opted for measures such as mandatory quarantine only to protect its people from this pandemic.

Advice to the act of the woman from the lenses of the following ethical theories:

Utilitarianism: The goal of utilitarianism is to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. Utilitarianism focuses on how the decision of an individual impacts the benefit of the society, thus helps the individual to select the right method to achieve his/her goals, as his/her one wrong action would affect the whole society. So, a woman has to follow the guideline of the Government & stay away from her husband during his quarantine period because the government put these measures to protect the whole society from this pandemic. If her husband is affected by this virus & women get infected after meeting him, and moves out freely, then suppose how many people may be affected by her because this is contagious disease.

Egoism: Ethical egoism says that the end result should be related to the welfare of a single person. It focuses on self-service or self-interest. The woman followed her ethical egoism & managed to meet her husband by non-compiling the governmental laws, and this is wrong. She should think about the after effect of her action & its association with the welfare of the society & advice to abolish such activity.

Golden Rule: Golden Rule is an ethical rule which signifies that you should treat others similarly you might want to be treated. The woman is right at her place to spend good time with her husband, but she is ethically wrong. Her actions not only violate government laws, but also affect the associated community or society. She must avoid such action by remembering the Golden Rule which states- treat others in the same way as you wanted to be treated. If she wanted to be treated fairly by the government then she should avoid out-breaking the law.

Justice: Justice is associated with treating individuals equally with fairness. Everyone should be treated equally & fairly without being distinguished. In this scenario, it is the responsibility of the woman to do justice with the society & avoid meeting her husband & follow the government laws, but she didn't do this. Justice is not only associated with the government, it is also associated with the individual living in the society, each individual has moral responsibility to treat others equally & fairly.

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