I am right and you are right, but one of us is wrong.

The ethical perspectives addressed in “What is Ethics,” by Velasquez, Andre and others, are useful for organizing what is going on inside of our heads when faced with knots of emoting people. The various approaches make it easy to pinpoint how values conflict and solutions never balance out mathematically (unless imaginary numbers are used). For example, the utilitarian approach states that whatever achieves the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people could easily butt heads with the virtue approach that states that we should act in ways that encourage certain ideals. Let’s say that by lying to the government we could save food that was deemed uneatable and give it to people who don’t have any food. This may be ethically right when viewed with the utilitarian perspective because more people are benefiting from this scenario. At the same time, this may be ethically wrong when viewed with the virtue perspective because it promotes dishonesty.

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