Choice 2: A married couple, both addicted to drugs, are unable to care for their infant daughter. She is taken from them by court order and placed in a foster home. The years pass. She comes to regard her foster parents as her real parents. They love her as they would their own daughter. When the child is 9 years old, the natural parents, rehabilitated from drugs, begin court action to regain custody. The case is decided in their favor. The child is returned to them, against her will. Does ethics support the law in this case? Discuss.
Initially, the court’s decision to place the custody of the child to foster parents is lawful. The married couple can be a great threat to their daughter considering that they were both then addicted to drugs. Years passed and the child lived happily with her foster parents. On the other hand, her natural parents became rehabilitated from drugs. If the court decided to give back the custody of the child to the biological parents, even if it is against her will, it is still ethical.
First, the child is still young for her age to decide for herself. The natural parents, who were previously victims of drugs, have the right to their daughter. If it has been proven after some times that the real parents are responsible enough to care for their child, then, it is the more ethical. The child will later on learn to adapt to her original parents. She is 9 years old. After some times, she can even compare if the love that her natural parents is providing to her is comparable or even better than her foster parents. People should always be given second chance like the natural parents after undergoing restoration in life.
Second, the natural parents did what they possibly could just to regain custody to their once infant daughter. It is hard for parents, who are renewed, to carry the burden of not seeing and taking care of their child for the past nine years. This is not an appeal to emotion, but it is a fact that people always long for their loved ones. After the couple learned of their mistakes, they do not want to, presumably, commit the same mistake again. It is difficult for parents while reminiscing lost time, love and care for their child. Human emotion and reason dictate that people become better individuals if given another opportunity to feel important and share that feeling to others, especially, to someone they love.
Third, the child cannot be blamed if she felt that it was against her will to be back again with her original parents. It is natural for an individual to develop that kind of feeling because her biological parents did not provide her with tender loving care during those past years. Anyway, the child will learn to accept the truth that what happened way back then is for her goodness’ sake. She will come to realize later that she should still be thankful that she had her natural parents back. So, taking account of the court’s decision: I may as well as this question: If the court will not decide in favor of the natural parents, when will that time be for the daughter to be reunited again to her original parents? I think, the court’s decision is the right moment for the family to become whole again.
Fourth, if I put my shoes on the situation of the foster parents, I will accept the court’s decision with all my heart. Since they learned to be parents, they should just/simply support the court’s decision and be thankful about that. However, for my part, I just can’t say that once my foster daughter is reunited to her original parents, that is the end of it. Definitely, not! I will still make agreements with the natural parents if their daughter can visit us once in a while, and vice versa. Because people create the bond of love after years of intimacy, it is just proper to ask a simple request. I believe the original parents will not decline to the foster parents’ request.
Thus, after much discussion, I assert that the court/law is supported by ethics. The case both for the natural and foster parents, respectively, under Rules based (e.g., Kant’s Duty Ethics), is ethical. For Kant, the court’s decision should not be viewed simply as a means to an end, but as end itself. It is the natural parents’ moral obligation to show their innate goodness and good action to their child. In the case of the foster parents, if they acted out of goodwill because they cared for their foster child; then, by all means, they done a morally right action. However, in the event they did not concede with their heart of the court’s decision in favor of returning custody to the real parents; then, for Kant, they are acting selfishly. What would then be their reason in case they are against the court’s decision? If in hope for an external reward, then Kant would say that they have not really done their duty as foster parents.
In the case of Ends based (e.g., Mill’s Utilitarian) Ethics, the court’s decision to return the child to her natural parents is ethical (that is, the law is supported by ethics). Having a family whole once again is like saying, “The whole is more than the sum of its part.” Likewise, the “greatest happiness for the greates number of people” befits the court’s favorable action to return the child to the natural parents. For ends-based ethics, the court’s decision is moral because the consequences would be beneficial for the whole family to be happy once again. In the case of the daughter who was returned to her parents against her will, it is still supported by this school of ethics. The daughter’s worth is either lesser or greater than her natural or foster parents. The reason for this is that the natural parents are rehabilitated and made the necessary steps to have her back in their life. The foster parents’ treatment of their foster child, on the one hand, is really admirable – and I think that is an enough implicit reward (that is, if what they had done was never previously motivated by any external rewards).
If asked whether Aristotle would agree or not with the two school of ethics, in all probability, I think he would. First, Rules based Ethics is after the first principle (Categorical Imperative), universalizability of values, and individuals as ends. There is nothing wrong with this ethical theory, except for the fact that it is viewed as too stiff and formal by some of its detractors. Second, Ends based Ethics is only after the consequences (outcomes) of one’s action to maximize happiness for the most, if not all, people. The only opposition to this type of ethical theory is the incommensurability of happiness for all people. Of course, the foster parents may not have been as happier as the natural parents who took away their foster child from them.
So, what do I have to say then concerning Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics in relation to the two ethical theories just mentioned? Aristotle’s Ethics does not focus on the rightness or wrongness of the court’s decision. For Aristotle, the court’s decision is a new opportunity for the natural parents to be moral parents such that they should show good examples and have mutual respects, especially that their daughter will soon develop into an adolescent and then adult. They should be able to manifest (now that they have their daughter back) a high degree of moral realibility despite disorienting situations that may come their way. The reason for this is that Aristotle believe that virtues are both products of good parenting, good environment and other forms of goodness acquired through habit.
References
Aristotle. (n.d.). Nichomachean Ethics. (D. Stevenson, Trans.) The Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.mb.txt
Kant, I. (1785). First Section: Transition from the Common Rational Knowledge of Morals to the Philosophical. In Foundation of the Metaphysic of Morals. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5682/pg5682.html
Mill, J. S. (1906). Utilitarianism. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm
