Republican Ethics the Republican Party Essay

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org). This makes the ethical dilemma faced by the Republican Party strikingly clear: they are caught between choosing to uphold their position on equality and personal liberty -- which would require them to include the Log Cabin Republicans and other groups, such as pro-choicers -- and upholding their moral values by condemning these groups and continuing to attempt legislative restrictions on their activities. Applications of different systems of ethics makes it equally clear that there is no real answer to this quandary.

John Stuart Mill's viewpoint on the issue of homosexuality would be very difficult to determine; like the Republican Party, he was born in an era where Christian values and morals were generally accepted as universally applicable, even by atheists. Homosexuality was far more abhorrent to the public mind then than it is now, and it seems likely that Mill would not have approved of such relationships. His ethical system of utilitarianism, however, might disagree. Mill claims that "Our moral faculty... supplies us only with the general principles of moral judgments; it is a branch of our reason, not of our sensitive faculty; and must be looked to for the abstract doctrines of morality, not for perception of it in the concrete" (Mill, Chapter 1, par. 3). To determine morality in the concrete, ill advances his Happiness or Utilitarian theory, that an act is moral if and only if its effects do more good than harm for a greater number of people (Mill). Applying this to the Republican dilemma still does not provide clear results, however.

The majority of people, according to scientific surveys, are heterosexual. Therefore the majority of people are not directly affected by issues of gay rights. Likewise, there are more people in this country that are not Republicans then there are people that are, so the issue might seem to be moot. There are utilitarian arguments that can be and have been applied to this issue, however.

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First, there is the claim that homosexuality is a private sexual matter between consenting adults, and that it causes no harm to the community even if it is considered immoral by society at large. Because it causes no concrete harm, but does lead to happiness for millions of America, homosexuality seems ethically permissible according to utilitarianism, and therefore the Republican Party should accept their gay faction fully. The response to this is that immoral behavior does cause harm to society at large, by weakening the bonds between the people of that society (RNC.org). According to this argument, homosexuality harms everyone with very little good coming out of it, and is therefore a utilitarian non-no.

These arguments both center on the ethicality and morality of homosexuality. An application of a different ethical system might produce somewhat clearer results. In his Nicomedian Ethics, Aristotle claims that the ethical worth or "good" of a person, thing, or action is determined by how well it fulfills its intended function, which is basically summed up in his assertion "that a function is performed well when performed in accordance with the virtue or excellence appropriate to it" (Aristotle, Book 1, Chapter 7). For the Republican Party, then, exclusion of moral minorities is ethical so long as the party's primary function is moral rectitude. Of course, the flip side of this is that if the party's main function is the establishment of liberty and equality, their exclusion is unethical.

The reason ethical dilemmas exists is that there are no easy answers in regards to them. Almost any ethical theory can be applied on either side of an issue without specious and inaccurate interpretation. Political controversies within and around the Republican Party are sure to continue for years to come.

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