In your perspective, what would be the best ethical theory toanalyze the case study \"my family's honor? Please elaborate on whyyou think this way

My family’s Honor

My name is Charles, but my friends and family call me Chuck. Iam the fifth child in a family of 7, three older sisters and anolder brother before me, and a sister one a year younger and abrother 5 years younger than her. Due to the age difference betweenmy sister and my little brother, jokes were told in familygatherings referring to my little brother as an “accident” or as“Ramses” making reference to a popular name brand of condomsimplying that my mother had gotten pregnant because the RamsesCondoms were somehow damaged. At that time in my life, roughly 15years old, I did not find these jokes or comments funny at all.Nevertheless, we had grown to know my little brother as Ramses forlack of a better nickname and he hated it even though I do notthink he understood what it meant.

One warm summer afternoon, my little brother came home veryangry. For days to follow, he did not want to talk about what wasmaking him upset and seemed absent and sad. As the week came to anend, he was still obviously upset to the point that he refused togo to a football game that we had been planning to go for weeks. Idid not understand what the problem was, but what I was about tofind out, would make me reevaluate the meaning of the word“honor.”

A few weeks before this incident, a young Down Syndrome boy hadbeen accepted into my brother school, fact that I was not aware of.Moved by a government “full integration” policy, schools wereadmitting what in those days were known as “non-traditionalstudents”, a group that was composed by Down Syndrome, Autistic andother learning disabled children that up until that time had beengoing to special education centers out of the public eye. Thinkingin retrospect, I personally had never been close or even seen aDown Syndrome child. The closest thing I remember was a boy wholived across the street who used to spy on us as we played in thestreet but never came out. Later on in life I found out that hisname was Bobby and he had been the victim of a nasty disease knownas Polio and thus confined to a wheel chair. Bobby was “homeschooled” not because he had a learning disability, but probablybecause his parents tried to protect him from bullies and deep downinside they were possibly a bit ashamed of him.

After a while, my little brother (whose real name was David),decided to open up to me and told me the reasons why he had beenupset in the past days. With tears in his eyes, David proceeded tonarrate what he had been subjected to by kids in the school. Helooked and me and said: Last Monday I went to school and some ofthe older kids were pointing at me and laughing. Before I knew itfrom the crowd I heard a voice yelling “Ramses, Ramses you mothercan’t keep on her pantses.” In a macabre and cruel way of makingfun of David by making up words to make a silly rhyme, they wereimplying that my mother was a whore who could not keep her pants onand thus, got pregnant with David. Never mind that my mother wasmarried to my father and consequently she could not be labeled as awhore, I was enraged that this kids would have my mother in theirstupid mouths. I was so upset about this that I told David thatnext time he saw the kid or kids who did this to him to point themout to me that I would make them pay. Keep in mind that David wasaround 8 years old at that time, so to him it was a huge deal to bereassured by his big brother that he was going to be protected.

Weeks went by without any incidents and then one afternoon asDavid and I were walking through the playground by our house, hesaw the culprit of his ridicule. He seemed excited and nervous whenhe pointed out his “offender” in the distance. From thatperspective the kid seemed big, even bigger than me at 15. Withoutthinking about it I ran towards him convinced that if I surprisedhim and hit first, I would have the advantage. Since the kid waswalking away from him, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt andswung him around. A right hook to his belly made him lose his air,a punch in the mouth and then another….. by this time all of thekids in the playground were surrounding me chanting “fight, fight,fight…” All I could think of was my mother’s honor….. never againwould anyone dare calling my mother a whore…. I was blinded by rageas I continued to punch and kick. It was not long before someonegrabbed me and pinned me down…. In my rage I heard a woman cryingin desperation…… as I reclaimed by composure, I began to see what Ihad done.

On the ground, bleeding with what seemed a broken nose, andcrying covering his face was this big kid…. The woman who had beencrying, his mother, was trying to console him and as she helped himout my rage turned to horror as I realized the kid I had badly hurtwas the Down Syndrome boy that had come to my brother’s school afew weeks ago. I learned his name was Christian and in an act ofcruelty bigger than anything I had ever seen, had been bullied bythe bigger kids into making fun of my brother. I had inflicted alot of damage on this boy who had no understanding of what he wassaying and I did not know what to say. In an attack of remorse, Itoo started to cry asking him to forgive him… I could not look athim or his mother, I had never in my short life felt so muchremorse.

In an effort to regain my mother’s honor, I had attacked thewrong person, I had acted without thinking, I had committed an actof violence against someone who could not properly defend himself.What a shameful and coward act.

Time passed and we all got older. Christian was taken out of theschool and we never heard anything from him. I got married and hadchildren… 3 girls and a boy. Life sometimes likes to play crueljokes on us and my boy was born with Down Syndrome. In areconciliatory move, I named him Christian…. Not because I feltguilty anymore, but because I wanted to protect this littleChristian and make sure that no bully ever took advantage of him.Today Christian is 10 years old. He is a mild case of Down Syndromeand the doctors seem to think that he will live a long andproductive life. I cannot help however, to see the stares or thelittle boys pointing at him when we go to the playground. Today myhonor is in making sure that my son will never be abused by anyone.Funny I should say this, but sometimes when I hold my Christian inmy arms I still shed a tear of remorse for what I did to that poorboy many years ago.