What in your opinion is the difference between doing the best thing and doing the right thing?

Kantian ethics incorporates intention into its moral system. Infact for Kant the only acceptable motive to decide if an action is moral is the sense of duty. He goes on to say that the consequences of an action are not important, and that only the motive is, and therefore if we try to save a drowning child, but end up killing it by accident, the action is still considered moral. It can be seen that trying to save the child may not have been the best thing to do, even though you did it out of a sense of duty, or out of good intention. Therefore as Kantian ethics is not concerned about the consequences of an action (means justify the ends) then is many circumstances, like the one above, one may not choose the best possible action.

The distinction between doing the best thing and doing the right thing is already starting to appear, however I will discuss the two schools of morality in more depth, to try and get a more definitive distinction.

Kant believes that humans can make moral choices, and therefore if we ought to do something we can do it (ought implies can). The notion of ought for Kant, derived from the fact that humans do not always do what they should (their duty), they often do what they want (desire). For example, I ought to go see my sick granny, but I am going to watch a football match. For Kant, in this situation I would have not fulfilled my sense of duty, and therefore I am not choosing the morally right action. If I add to the situation the fact that I will meet my future wife at the football match, then it may be argued that going to the football match would be the best thing to do. This kind of action would be seen as acting in self-interest and would not be considered the right thing to do.

One reason for why I think that utilitarianism cannot always be linked to doing the right thing is the lack of fairness and personal rights being addressed. For example, a young child is drugged so that he looses conscience but the drug doesn’t do any harm to his body. While he is unconscious a group of paedophiles remove his clothes and photo him nude without abusing him and once they are done they put him back where they left him, so that he never finds out what happened. These photos that are taken are then distributed over the net so other paedophiles can gain pleasure from them.

According to a utilitarian their actions would be justified because it brought about the greatest amount of pleasure to the greatest number, and the manner in which they achieved this is considered irrelevant. However nearly everyone would agree that the paedophiles’ actions were morally wrong, and that the notions of fairness and rights are not considered. Therefore one cannot say that their actions were the right thing to do, and it may even be hard in this instance to say they did the best thing. This shows that it is not as straight forward to say that utilitarianism addresses the best thing, and that Kantian ethics addresses the right thing. Another example emphasising this, is the fact that it is possible to universalise an immoral act in Kantian ethics, so long as it still passes the principle of ends test. Any immoral act cannot be considered to be doing the right thing.

To conclude, I believe that there is a different between the right thing and the best thing. Doing the best thing seems to be based on the outcome of an action (consequentialist), and not interested in the way the outcome is achieved. Doing the right thing however seems to be based on the sense of duty, i.e. the intention of your action, and is not interested in the consequences of an action. With these clear distinctions, they seem to fall nicely into either a utilitarian or a Kantian view, as utilitarianism is consequentialist based, and Kantian ethics is intention based. However there are also instances where they do not fall so easily into these categories. Even thought they may not be able to fit into either moral school perfectly, there is still a clear and distinct difference between doing the best thing and doing the right thing.