Deontological Ethics and Law Essay

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Ethics and morality feature strongly in Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Set against a backdrop of antebellum social stratification, the novel shows how individuals like the title character make their moral choices. Moreover, Huckleberry Finn is a coming-of-age story showing how the title character discovers his own moral voice. His deepening friendship with Jim, and the conflicts that friendship cause him due to race relations in the antebellum south, help Huckleberry Finn distinguish between the artificial morality ensconced in unjust laws and the genuine moral truths of friendship and universal human rights. Huckleberry Finn's decision-making process reflects both virtue ethics and Kantian deontological ethics.

The Fugitive Slave Law is morally unjust from the perspective of Kantian deontological ethics. Requiring that all witnesses of runaway slaves report the transgression to the authorities, the Fugitive Slave Law upholds a morally turbid social and economic system. Yet as a white boy, Huckleberry Finn has never been taught to question the morality of slavery. He has been raised to believe that blacks are inferior to whites, which is why he continually reflects on the subversiveness of his friendship with Jim. Even the strictest interpretation of Kantian ethics would struggle to resolve Huckleberry Finn's moral conflict. On the one hand, Huckleberry Finn associates moral righteousness with obedience to the law and the social codes that govern the only society he knows. On the other hand, the boy associates moral righteousness with human dignity and the mores of friendship. Ultimately Huckleberry Finn realizes that there is a difference between moral righteousness and the law, particularly when the law itself is unjust. Being indoctrinated into the social system of the antebellum South makes it challenging to reach the conclusion, which is why Huckleberry Finn's conscience haunts him.

Virtue ethics highlight the character's morally upright nature. Huckleberry Finn reacts to the calling of his conscience with virtue, recognizing that his conscience does not speak the truth but simply reflects the voice of a racist culture into which he was born. As a child still, Huckleberry Finn is an ethically innocent creature, allowing Twain to embed virtue ethics into the story without becoming pedantic. Huckleberry Finn is still shaping his own moral character, his own moral virtue. Society threatens to impart its own set of moral standards on him, based on his race and gender, yet innately Huckleberry Finn knows that slavery is dehumanizing and that race does not determine a person's relative value, worth, or dignity in the society.

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Choosing friendship and justice over the law proves the Huckleberry Finn is morally virtuous. He does not have to learn moral virtue; in fact, he reaches his conclusions about Jim totally independently.

Throughout the novel, Huck is confronted with situations that require him to choose between a rigid moral framework such as one suggested by Kant, and a virtue ethical framework. Each time, Huck opts for a course of action that showcases his virtue. Moreover, Huckleberry Finn even veers toward utilitarianism. He does not mind breaking the law as long as by breaking the law he is promoting the common good. In this case, the common good is represented by a new moral order in which the dignity and rights of all people are valued above the institution of slavery. Although Huckleberry Finn as a novel falls short of presenting a full condemnation of slavery, the title character does exhibit a virtuous moral character that indicates that slavery is an immoral institution. As a child, and as a child who did not have a strict upbringing due to his delinquent dad, Huck is liberated from the society that upholds immoral institutions and ensconces those institutions in the law. Alternatively, institutions like slavery are entrenched in religious institutions.

Jim is Huck's only real friend throughout much of the novel, and it seems shocking that Huck would even consider turning in his friend. However, Huck's conscience also reflects his virtuous character in that Huck does not want to disappoint "Poor Miss Watson." He cares much more for pleasing her and acting kindly toward Miss Watson than he cares about obeying the law or conforming to Christian behavioral standards. After all, the Christian values that Huck learns are as falsely framed as the Fugitive Slave Law. The motif of the "conscience" represents the great sway that social norms and expectations have on a person's character and ability to make ethical decisions. A weaker moral character might have buckled under the pressure, listened to the conscience -- which is a false moral voice. The conscience is no moral voice; it is simply the vestiges of indoctrination into a dysfunctional social and ethical system. Deontological ethics fail Huck Finn because deontological ethics are too simplistic, narrow, and rigid to be realistic in a complex world. Religion often provides the voice of "conscience," too. Huck's main concern is remaining faithful to those who care for him; not remaining faithful to an abstract deity.….....

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