Ethics and Morals: Utilitarian and deontological ethical philosophies

You are a patrol officer in a state that prohibits the selling, giving, or sharing of any tobacco products with anyone younger than 18 years of age. Similarly, there is also a prohibition of selling, giving, or sharing any alcohol or alcoholic beverages with anyone younger than 21 years of age.

On your day off, you and several members of your shift have been invited to your sergeant’s home for a cookout. While standing around with the sergeant and a couple of your shift members, the sergeant’s daughter asks her father if he has any cigarettes. He hands her a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. Later, you notice the daughter and one of her friends sitting off to the side and both of them are drinking beers from cans. You know from a prior introduction that the daughter is 16 years old. Her friend looks to be the same age.

Analyze this situation and prepare a report that covers the following points:

Discuss all of your options in this scenario. Show how each option has a basis in an ethical system.

Provide background information from your home state regarding the behaviors described in the scenario. What do your state’s laws say about providing tobacco or alcohol to a minor? (south carolina)

Identify the utilitarian and deontological ethical philosophies of each option.

Describe what your response would be. Explain how your response would hold up if questioned by your captain.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.