Society and the Individual Stop Sign

Essay by wardrooney10Junior High, 9th grade December 2004

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If four cars were to arrive simultaneously at a four-way intersection marked solely with stop signs there would be obvious confusion on what to do. Some would go straight ahead of everyone else, others would wait to let others go and maybe the drivers would go as far as to roll down their windows and discus the matter. What would ultimately decide the actions an individual would take would be determined by a philosophical theory.

Under anarchism there would be a big problem. Since under anarchism everyone would want was best for them all the drivers would drive at the same time trying to be first. Everyone going at the same time would cause a big four-car pile up. Using anarchistic believes would be the worse thing for this scenario for it would end up deadly. Utilitarianism would be just as bad for those with utilitarian believes one would also want to put themselves first and cause the same type of crash.

Utilitarianism and anarchism would both be awful for this scenario. Social contract and natural law would have much better results.

Under social contract no one would forge ahead and cause a crash. Instead, they would probably discuss the matter by rolling down their windows and discussing it. This would take more time, however; it would be much safer for no one would end up in a crash. Under natural law the citizens would probably all yield to each other. They would all sit at the stop sign and wait for the other people to move ahead of them. This however would be useless for no one would take the initiative and the cars would be sitting there for a long time. While no one would die in this situation it would not be effective. In short, one can...