Marijuana Use: An Ethical Examination Essay -- legalization of marijuan

Works Cited Missing instead of addressing the tiresome argument about whether or not marijuana should be legalized in the United States, I would like to examine a much(prenominal) more fundamental question whether or not it is right to physical exertion the drug. This problem is strictly an ethical one. If we be to examine but the lesson implications of the action then we must(prenominal) discard political laws from the equation, for this finish could be made anywhere, at any time, under any sort of governmental regime, under any set of laws, which after all are only that particular governments best guess at godliness and whos to say their judgment is any better than yours? Knowing that this decision is a rather daunting one, Ive enlisted the help of three fri hold ons, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and lav Stuart Mill, to aid in the decision making process. It just so happens that they are experts in the field of ethics. Aristotle is an ancient Greek ph ilosopher, really the first philosopher to engagement the word ethics. His major book on ethics is entitle Nicomachean Ethics (Bostock 1). In order to understand Nicomachean Ethics and apply it, we must first understand how Aristotle viewed the homo. Aristotle sees the world in terms of ends, purposes, and functions. In nature, the end of the acorn is to become an oak tree. In human affairs, the end of architecture is to relieve oneself buildings of shipbuilding, to produce ships of medicine, to promote health. Humans too have a function, an ultimate end this Aristotle calls eudaimonia. The traditional translation is happiness, but this translation is misleading. To put it most(prenominal) aptly eudaimonia connotes overall success and prosperity and achievement, though it in any case connotes something that we may call... ... the world would most likely be made up of people enjoying pleasure, something that can not really be considered bad. Many would advocate that the world would be full of drug addicts, but this is not the world that we have set up. According to our perceived duty, all must employment marijuana in moderation, and to use it to excess would be just as offensive to the duty as would be not using it at all. We have now heard from three very distinguished honourable philosophers, and all have said that moderate use of marijuana is not a bad thing, one even calling it our duty. The most earthy type of actual moral reasoning is a loose conclave or confusion of methods (Sweet 4). So, if we combine all that we have heard, the only cultivation that can be drawn is that the use of marijuana, as a bodied pleasure, is morally justifiable, probably more so than not using the drug.