Posted: September 13th, 2017

Ethical Dilemmas

This dilemma is a little different from previous chapters. A legislator must vote his or her conscience as well as represent the opinions of the constituents. A good legislator would, hopefully, think through legislative proposals using an ethical analysis as below:

Regarding a mandatory 5 year prison sentences for DWI:

Ethical judgment: It is too harsh.

Moral Rules: One should treat each person as an end and not as a means.

One should act in such a way that you will it to be a universal law.

One should do what is best for everyone.

Ethical system: The first two rules are consistent with ethical formalism; the third is consistent with utilitarianism. Punishing a DWI offender (assuming no one was hurt) with a five year sentence, even for repeat crimes, seems to be a disproportional punishment to the seriousness of the crime. If the reason is to deter, then that is treating them as a means, and not as an end. Further, it is unlikely that everyone would be subject to the sentence – those who had “connections” would probably not be charged (this seems to be what is happening with mandatory jail terms for 3rd time DWI’s today). Utilitarianism would look at the cost of the punishment compared to the benefit and find that it is too expensive