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If people carried out actions which could potentially harm others, and others consented to the person carrying out the action, is carrying out such an action still ethical? If I were to judge this with the ethical framework of utilitarianism, would this be unethical as it advocates harm? If I were to judge this with the ethical framework of deontology, would this be unethical as the nature of the action intends to bring harm, and thus such an action is unethical?

J D
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user1039203
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  • If the others who have consented include the others who could be harmed then provided the consent was informed and free, it would not be unethical. But I doubt that the others who could be harmed would consent unless they will also benefit from the action. If the primary intention of the action is to cause harm, then it is unethical. If the harm caused is known about, but a possible side-effect, then, provided the risk and the level of harm is evaluated, it may be ethical. – Ludwig V Mar 07 '23 at 15:48
  • I would like to tender an apology to all. – Agent Smith Mar 07 '23 at 18:53

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Ethics, when generally conceived and practiced by professional and professionally trained ethicists, generally is not so simple or absolutist. While some actions may be intrinsically right or wrong based on simple rules, life is hardly so simple that a single action can be judged free of context or neglects taking the specifics of the situation into account. A prominent example of that is most societies accept there are times killing a human being is acceptable, which is one of the chief ethical taboos from culture to culture.

Also, in these sorts of discussions, what has to be understood first is the nature of the ethical theory presumed to apply. Meta-ethics is understanding that there are many types of ethical theories by many types of ethicists, and they might be normative or applied:

In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought to be and act) and applied ethics (practical questions of right behavior in given, usually contentious, situations).

So an ethicist who believes in consequentialism will look to outcomes, for instance, when making decisions. In this case, neither consent nor potential injury are necessarily the standard, but actual outcomes, that is what actually happens.

If consenting to an action that only potentially and not actually leads to a consistently bad outcome, said ethicist may be free to point out that the chance is remote or theoretical. A practical example would be a doctor who is given consent to operate on a brain tumor whose removal has a 0.1% chance of causing blindness, but a 99.9% chance of preventing death. If patients' rights and wishes are respected, and they have an adequate understanding, a consequentialist would affirm the outcome.

Your question begins to delve into these issues in a simple form, and as you begin to explore ethics, you'll find often that simple moral absolutist principles are generally discarded for more sophisticated reason and assumptions. "Thou shall not kill" is generally replaced with "Thou shall not kill unless...".

J D
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  • So if the consequence is 100% bad, but just varies on how bad it is, it is unethical? – user1039203 Mar 07 '23 at 15:55
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    Well, are you saying that the situation leads to multiple bad outcomes? Then intuitively, most people would apply the principle that the best outcome is the lesser of two evils. Being an ethicist means using reason to sort out what "lesser" or "least" means in this context. – J D Mar 07 '23 at 16:05
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    So, sometimes to choose the least evil outcome is itself an ethical choice. That make sense? – J D Mar 07 '23 at 16:05
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    Yes, thank you! – user1039203 Mar 07 '23 at 16:08
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    No worries. Ethics is a complicated affair, indeed. – J D Mar 07 '23 at 16:12
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Two cents.

According to human rights standards, the consent of someone to be harmed is irrelevant.

It is still considered a violation of humans rights, regardless of consent.

And this is because:

  1. Human rights are inalienable, cannot be surrendered. In the same way one cannot remove the need to eat or drink from someone.
  2. There are many ways to extract the consent from someone even against their will (eg torture). So there is always the chance the person consenting is acting against their will and best interests.

So given these, a violation of human rights, even with the explicit consent of the person violated, is still a violation under human rights law.

PS: Even during war, civilians and prisoners of war, cannot be killed or tortured, etc.. It is considerd a war crime and crime against humanity.

jus in bello

Nikos M.
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