Human Trafficking

The issue of human trafficking is one that poses substantial ethical concerns, which can be understood from a variety of philosophical perspectivesdeontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. Even from other moral standpoints, such as the moral standpoint of Christianity, human trafficking can be viewed as an unethical and immoral activity. Each approach allows for a different aspect of ethical understanding to be utilized so as to see how the issue of human trafficking is one that violates ethical norms, regardless of how one perceives those norms in any of three ethical systems named here. This paper will show the moral issue of human trafficking violates the ethical principles of Kant, Mill, Aristotle, and the Christian approach to morality based on their respective philosophical and even theological foundations.

The deontological perspective on ethics is that one has a duty to do what is moral towards others. This system of ethical practice is predicated on the idea that individuals are responsible to one another in any society and that their ethics are determined by these duties. In a free society, people have a duty to promote the freedoms and rights of individuals. Human trafficking is an issue in which freedom and rights are denied the human being who is being trafficked. That person is essentially a slave who is going to be sold to another and used like property. The freedom of the person might have been abandoned willingly (some people feel they have no other option than to sell themselves into slavery) or it might have been stolen (as others who are trafficked are the victims of abduction); regardless, the problem is evident that freedom is lost and human rights violations are occurring. Modern society has enunciated its commitment to human rights for centuries and its duty therefore is predicated on the system of values that society upholds.

Trafficking is a violation of international lawthe law which modern nations all recognize and which serves as the foundation for their ethical duties, from the deontological perspective. International law is such that it respects the rights of nations to protect their borders and the rights of people to affirm their own self-determination. This is why there are both immigration ports and services in all countries and why there is also the United Nations Human Rights policy of protecting individual human rights. Both laws and rights are issues that nations all over the world recognize as important, and thus the duty to both respect laws about immigration and the rights of people means that human trafficking is an unethical activity as it aims to bypass both laws and rights of personhood. For example, human traffickers do not adhere to passport laws or obtain visas in every case for their victims. Neither do they smuggle individuals from place to place with concern for the individuals liberty and personal choice. This is why virtually every nation views human trafficking as a criminal enterprise: it violates the duties that nations owe to one another and to people in general. This is the essence of the deontological perspective for why human trafficking is immoral.

The utilitarian perspective, developed by Mill, holds that ethical behavior is determined by what produces the greatest common good for society. The common good serves as the measuring stick for whether an action is moral or immoral, for whether ones principles are...

…their sufferingnot add to it. Indeed, this is the essence of what it means to engage in charitable works. One puts the needs of others before ones own needs, which is the opposite of what happens in the case of human trafficking. When people are trafficked the victims needs are ignored and the priority is given to those few who stand to benefit from the enslavement of others. This is why human trafficking is antithetical to Christian morality. It is a practice that ignores the suffering of people, which is a violation of the teaching of Christ to His disciples.

In conclusion, human trafficking can be seen to be an immoral practice from a number of different ethical perspectives. Regardless of whether one is approaching the issue from the standpoint of deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics or the morality of the Christian religion, the outcome is always the same: human trafficking is not a good activity to engage in; it violates the ethical principles of the various ethical systems and serves as an immral practice in which the rights and well-being of victims of trafficking are ignored or violated. It does not help to promote the rule of law and in fact is a violation of the rule of law across many nations in the world; it does not serve to promote the common good, and in fact undermines it because liberty is commonly upheld as one of the greatest goods in modern society; it does not promote virtuous or moral behavior as it neglects the good of the victims; and it does not promote the teachings of Christ that individuals should love their neighbor. Thus, human trafficking cannot be said…