Introduction

Philosophy (critical thinking) is the study of general and fundamental

problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty,
law, justice, validity, mind, and language. There are three important branches
of philosophy and Ethics is one of the most important branches of philosophy.

The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending,

and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today
usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: Meta ethics,
normative ethics, and applied ethics.

Meta ethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what
they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than
expressions of our individual emotions? Meta ethical answers to these
questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of
reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.

Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral

standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve
articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should
follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others.

Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as

abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality,
capital punishment, or nuclear war.

This is an assignment to write a story from my own life and to evaluate my

action with referent to ethical theories. The story I am going to tell you is my
own story.
The story

This is the story of the year 1999, when I was a student of class X. Our family
lived in Uttara and I was a student of Uttara High School and College. I had a
lot of friends in my school life. But among all other friends Mehedi hasan
Micheal was my best friend. August 30 was my friend Micheal’s birthday. As
he was my best friend in school life I decide to give him a birthday gift. I
went to market very early in the morning to buy a gift for my friend. . That
was a cold morning and the clock was showing 8:30 am. A hard foggy
morning, anyone hardly can see anything. I reached market and found only
few shops opened. Luckily I found a gift shop and that was open. I choose an
album (photo album) for my friend from that shop. That was a shop of fixed
price. The price that I found was Tk.320. It was nice photo album and I
decided to take the album for my friend. I gave the shopkeeper Tk.500 for
change. There was no doubt that the shopkeeper would return me Tk.180.
But what happened that the shopkeeper gave me Tk.630 in return. One five
hundred taka note, one hundred taka note, one twenty taka note and one ten
taka note. I got the mistake what he did but I did not tell him the mistake.
Instead of telling him the mistake I gave him the money return to count
again. He took the money from me and count again. Again he failed to realize
his mistake and gave me back money. After that what I did, I toke the money
and the photo album from his hand and leave the shop.

The mistake of the shopkeeper was that, he thought the note of TK.500 as a
note of Tk.50. Instead of taking a note of Tk.50 he toke a note of TK.500
from his cash box. For that reason the amount of money he returned me was
TK.630 not TK.180.
My role

In the previous story that I wrote I found my role as a co-actor. Because it

was the mistake of the shopkeeper who gave me back extra 450 taka. I found
the mistake instantly but I was remaining silent.

Reasons of my role

This is a story of 1999 and at that time I was a boy of only 16 years of age.
At that time I was remaining silent for two reasons:
1. Although it was a shop of Fixed Price, I requested him to give me
some concession. But he denied my request impolitely. His behavior
annoyed me.
2. As I was very young I thought that what I did was right because I
gave him back the money to count again but he failed to discover his
faults.

Ethical explanation of my action:

According to Utilitarianism a utilitarian defines the action “good” as whatever

brings about the greatest total happiness. To a utilitarian whichever is most
likely to bring about the most happiness is the right action in those
circumstances. The shopkeeper was happy by selling his product and I was
also happy because I was benefited that means that my action was right as it
increased the total happiness. This was the short term effect of my role.

But if we think about the long term effect of my role it was wrong because
after the day when he checked his cash box and found that he lost 450 taka
from cash surely that did not make him happy.
Again for Kant it was clear that a moral action was one performed out of a
sense of duty rather then simply out of inclination or feeling or the possibility
of some kind of gain for the person performing it. It was my duty to give
extra money back to the shopkeeper. But I did not do that. So according to
Kantian ethics my action was not morally right also.