The Ethics of Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking

The issue of human trafficking is one that poses substantial ethical concerns, which can be understood from a variety of philosophical perspectives—deontology, 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 law—the 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 individual’s 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 one’s principles are ethical or unethical (Belak, Rozman). What leads to the greatest happiness for all people is how the common good is realized, and that serves as the basis for determining ethical principles in the utilitarian perspective.

Thus, from the utilitarian perspective, human trafficking can be evaluated in terms of how it impacts the common good, or how it affects the happiness of the greatest number of people on the planet. It could be argued that human trafficking and slavery actually serve to benefit more people than it harms: after all, slaves helped to build the American nation. However, if one really examines the facts, one sees that just the opposite is true. Instead of benefiting a lot of people, slavery and human trafficking actually only benefits a select, small group of people, who benefit from the labor of others and from the deprivation of freedom of others: a person who traffics humans will make money when people are delivered, and people who use humans as slaves will profit from their service—but for the rest of society, which is by far and away the majority of the population, there is no discernible benefit.

Moreover, the greatest common good—i.e., the greatest happiness of society—cannot be achieved via human trafficking. On the contrary, trafficking takes away from the happiness of society, as it signifies a loss of freedom and a violation of the agreed upon ideals that people of the modern world share from coast to coast. Liberty is recognized as a great virtue in the modern world and if the liberty of individuals is taken away, the society feels guilty and feels the need to do something to stop this. A society that is worried about oppressing others and appearing hypocritical is not going to be a society that is at its happiest or most contented level. Thus, simply from this point of view, human trafficking can be seen to violate the ethical parameters of the utilitarian theory.

From the perspective of virtue ethics, human trafficking can also be seen to be immoral. Virtue ethics is explained by Aristotle as the idea that ethical principles are derived from adherence to a life of virtue. Virtues are identified as the transcendental ideals which humans can both know intuitively and can learn about through teaching or experience. Humans not only must know these virtues, they must also embody them and make them part of their daily lives as habits in order to be happy (Kristjansson). The virtues that are promoted are what make up the moral character of the individual. Instead of focusing on rules or laws, as is the case with the deontological perspective, or on the consequences of one’s actions on the common good as is the case with the utilitarian perspective, the focus on morality and the moral character of an action is the basis of the virtue ethics perspective (Fishman, McCarthy).

From this perspective, human trafficking can be seen as immoral as it violates the moral principle of respect that people should have for one another. Virtues like kindness and love and honor are all absent in an activity like human trafficking where there is no concern for the well-being of the victim who is trafficked. The person is not even seen as a person but rather as a commodity to be transferred from one place to another like a package in the mail, and upon arrival to be used like an item purchased in a store. This is no way to treat people, from a virtue ethics point of view, as it violates the nature of relationships and how people should be supportive of one another rather than oppressive towards each other.

Finally, from a Christian perspective, the immorality of human trafficking can be seen. Christianity teaches that people should love one another. Christ states that the two greatest laws or commandments are: 1) love God, and 2) love one’s neighbor (Mark 12:30-31). In order to love one’s neighbor, Christ gives numerous examples of how this can be achieved. From the example of the Samaritan who stops on his way to treat the wounds of the man injured and left for dead on the side of the road, to Christ’s own assistance to people who were sick, blind, dying, or even dead. In each case, the primary lesson was that people should look after one another to ease their suffering—not add to it. Indeed, this is the essence of what it means to engage in charitable works. One puts the needs of others before one’s 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.