Ethical or Unethical?

Ethics help us sort things out when we have issues.  It helps us decide what it is right to do as an individual or even when it comes to society.  According to our text, an ethical decision should be explainable to others in a way that they will appreciate, regardless of whether they accept it. Overall, it is deciding whether or not you are going to choose to do the right thing. When it comes to downloading music illegally, most people question as to whether this is ethical or not.  According to the definition, this would be highly unethical for someone to do.  There is no acceptable reason as to why people should be able to download music for free that other people work hard to make for our entertainment. Most people do not stop and take the time to ponder this thought because they are too busy downloading other people’s work for free.  Immanuel Kant asks us to think of what the results would be if everyone acted the same way.  If everyone thought that it was perfectly acceptable to download music illegally, musicians would probably stop making music for our listening purposes. They work hard and put in a lot of time and effort in order to please their fans, so their fans should respect them back by paying for their music.  Loyal fans and music listeners should not mind paying a few dollars to support the musician in hope of them coming out with a new album. People who download music illegally need to think of the consequences that could happen if everyone decided that they were just going to get music for free on a daily basis. It is understood that as high school and college students money is tight, but how about all of those long hours and all-nighters that they pull to write a term paper?  If those papers were up on the internet and people were using it to their advantage the creator of the paper getting paid for it, they would be highly upset.  There is no acceptable reasoning to give that would prove that downloading music illegally is an ethical decision.