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Objection To Act Utilitarianism

1217 Words5 Pages

Utilitarianism is the moral theory that the action that people should take it the one that provides the greatest utility. In this paper I intend to argue that utilitarianism is generally untenable because act and rule utilitarianism both have objections that prove they cannot fully provide the sure answer on how to make moral decisions and what will be the ultimate outcome. I intend to do this by defining the argument for act and rule utilitarianism, giving an example, presenting the objections to act and rule utilitarianism and proving that utilitarianism is untenable.
Both act and rule utilitarianism attempt to argue that what is right or wrong can be proven by what morally increases the well being of people. Act utilitarianism argues that …show more content…

A main objection to act utilitarianism is that it can be impossible to determine the scope, intensity, and/or the duration of the action. People cannot possibly predict every single outcome that will come from an action and the affect it will have for sure. Another objection to act utilitarianism is that it makes people rely to heavily on morals when making their decision. This turns even the simplest decision into some complicated process that is not needed. For example, people do not need to look at the intensity when they are deciding what chips to buy at the grocery store, they can simply just choose the one they like best. Rule utilitarianism attempts to fix the flaws of act utilitarianism by being stricter on how we should make our decisions. However, rule utilitarianism has the dilemma that sometimes rules can come into conflict with one another. Suppose someone told you a secret and you promised not to tell anyone, but you later find out that secret will harm someone else. Rule utilitarianism holds that people should keep their promises, but also that they should work to not harm anyone. This exposes the main dilemma to rule utilitarianism, and if the rule utilitarian were to say that depending on the situation some rules can be broken, then that just leads right back to act utilitarianism and how it depends on each situation. Neither act or rule utilitarianism is broad enough to fit every moral decision into their theory. Consequently, utilitarianism in general is

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