Sink to the bottom to find a solution: ethical paradigms Sometimes in life there are cases in which an individual must make a decision that will call into question his moral fiber. These cases could range from helping or not helping others in need, deciding whether an action is right or wrong, or even deciding who should live and who should die. How can one logically come to an ethnic conclusion to these situations? A Coast Guard helicopter is responding to two distress calls from two different ships sinking in the Pacific Ocean less than a mile from each other. A ship carries a middle-aged man, his wife and their two children under the age of ten. The other ship contains five middle-aged men. The Coast Guard helicopter has the capacity to carry five survivors and is equally likely to save either ship because it is the same distance from each incident, but it only has enough fuel to make one trip. Which ship should the coast guard save? Further analyzing this dilemma using various ethical viewpoints allows for a broad understanding of the principles and complexity in a specific situation with these paradigms. The focuses are three important ethical paradigms such as: teleological utilitarianism, deontological theories of duty and virtue-based ethics. Each of these three paradigms will be applied to the above dilemma, each will be evaluated and the best option will be revealed." Ethical utilitarianism can be described more generally as the principle that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by goodness and badness of their consequences." (Utilitarianism EOP 9:603.) Following this guideline, the morally right decision to make is to save the group with five...half of the card...of their personality, thus leading one to make a good or moral judgment in this situation. The downside to this ethic is that the moral fibers of coast guards may not be the same as those of other coast guards or even the people they are rescuing. Some may say that this type of person would save the family of four containing the children, but others argue that it is necessary to save as many lives as possible. All three ethical paradigms have great principles to apply; however, the situation can be preferably designed to fall under the theory of duty because there are some laws and obligations that cannot be disobeyed. Emotions and concern for others should not interfere with your work. This specific situation can be analyzed as far as it allows. Theories and ethics can be applied to any problem, but this shows that you need to apply them carefully and orderly.