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Difference Between Utilitarianism And Kantianism

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Moral theories are theories that help us distinguish between a right or a wrong action. Adequate moral theories help us understand that what we should or shouldn’t do in certain situations. Two of the most famous moral theories are Utilitarianism and Kantianism. According to Utilitarianism, an action is right if only if it out of all the other action gives out the maximum utility. In oppose to that, Kantianism says that an action is right if and only if, in performing that action, the person does not treat anyone as a mean and treats everyone as an end in itself. The three different versions of Utilitarianism are, Act, Rule, and Preference Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism states that a person’s act is right if and only if it produces as many …show more content…

Utilitarianism is different from Kantianism because it says that you can perform any action even if it provides some harm to others, but at the end it should provide maximum utility. But on the other end, Kantianism says that you need to treat everyone equal, no one less than the other. They both hold different views but they both are right in certain situations. Utilitarianism and Kantianism conflict in many situations. For example, you have a friend who’s pregnant, but she’s scared to tell her parents. According to Kantianism, you should tell her parents because everyone deserves to be treated equally and they deserved the truth. In this situation if you tell her parents you are treating everyone equal by not hiding anything to her parents. On the other hand, according to utilitarianism, you should look for other options …show more content…

Truth telling and confidentiality depend upon the situations. It is right to tell the truth in certain but it is also right to hide something from the patients in certain situations. According to utilitarianism one should usually tell the truth and keep one’s promise because you should always perform an action that provides maximum utility and if keeping a promise and telling the truth makes someone happy then it is providing maximum utility. For example, your parents gave you present for your birthday but you don’t like it, in this situation not telling that you don’t like the present will give out maximum utility as it makes them happy. According to Kantianism, we should never treat anyone merely as a mean, which means that you should tell the truth even if it hurts other

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