Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

power wanting to keep guns circulating in the US. Inescapable is the bias reports that are re-

leased about Project Exile and of course similar attempts to gun control. The motives for the

overwhelming fight for guns is questionable. It is unreasonable to assume that the advocate

groups for guns are purely for the right to self defence.

No matter the effectiveness of this stricter law enforcement, allowing the extreme violence to

continue is not only by utilitarian law an issue, but reasonably something that needs be acted

upon. Kant’s categorical imperative argues that we are to only care about individual action,

but without the control, of what Hobbes would call ‘solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short’

(Fieser, 2008) behaviour, there can be no consequential good. Additionally, The US govern-

ment has evidently failed at creating gun allowance that is effective in the protection of citi-

zens, and for the second amendment to be completely reasonable again, control is needed to

be regained. Otherworldly freedom may be needed to be oppressed temporarily in order for a

safer society to be achieved.

Conclusion with Application to the City of Chicago

Due to the relativity of what term ‘gun control’ infers, the possible variance of application,

and the conflicting statistics, a conclusion is best drawn by the philosophical ideals applied

beforehand. Additionally, applying classical philosophy may not always look for absolute an-

swers but rather propose questions of morality to consider within the gun control dilemma.

Through analysing this topic through the opposing utilitarian and deontologist views, posi-

tives from each argument can answer the flaws within each, thus drawing a relative conclu-

sion. A main argument is limited to the reasoning of philosophies discussed, connected to

what is evident in the gun debate.