The Ethics of Drinking Alcohol
During my high school years, I had to make many decisions. Some of these decisions came
easily to me, like what clothes to wear to school. Some of them took more thought, like
what classes I should take during the upcoming semester. And some of them were questions
that kept me up all night to decide between right and wrong and forcing me to determine
what would be in my best interest. At this time, I was thinking as a Consequentialist.
Personal ethical egoism thinks that I always ought to act in my self-interest.
One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make involved whether or not I would drink
alcohol. This question kept me pondering off and on for the better part of three school
years and the second semester of my first college year.
If I just considered the legal side of things, then this should have been an easy
decision for me because of the fact that I was under age and it is obviously illegal for
persons who have not yet turned twenty-one to consume alcoholic beverages. This would be
the fifth stage of moral functioning, Legality. If you think at this stage, you will
follow the rules and laws all the time.
The law, however, did not prevent many of my friends from drinking nor did it do
much in the way of stopping them after they had started. The law was too easy to avoid
so getting caught by the cops was rarely a matter of great concern. Besides, even when
one of my friends would get caught, they were usually released to their parents with
nothing more than a stern warning from the officer who gave them the ride home.
Now, being at home brings up another reason not to drink. We all want to try to
obey our parents, right! Well actually, I did, want to try that is. This stage of moral
functioning is called Conformity. Here you try to be good boys and girls. I wasn't
going to be able to please them all the time, but I did want to try. My home life was a
lot easier if Dad and Mom weren't on my case all the time.
I had already spent most of my freshmen year of high school at home because of
disobeying my parents. This meant that in order for me to have any sort of social life,
I had to watch my step so that I wasn't grounded during the next big social engagement.
That meant that if I was going to drink with my friends, I could never get caught,
because getting caught could leave me seeing my friends only during classes.
Another factor wrestling with my mind was the fact that I had tried a beer or two
before to see what would happen, and all I had found was that I really don't like the
taste. I couldn't see how drinking something that tasted so awful could make people feel
so good.
I was also out for sports, so getting caught drinking alcohol could have lead to
suspension from a few meets or even being kicked off the team. If I was on school
grounds, I could also get suspended from school which could affect my grades and also my
chances of getting the big scholarship to college I wanted.
So, finally after considering all of these possibilities, it occurred to me that
there was truly only one decision for me to make at this point in my life--not to drink
yet. Use of Legality and Conformity, helped me decide not to drink yet. I would say
that I'm more of a relativist than an absolutist because my actions would depend on the
situation. I didn't decide that it would be unethical for me if I drank later in life,
but during high school it had many more downs than ups. I would still have Individual
Freedom to make a different choice latter in my life.
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