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Ethical Theories Of Ethics: Utilitarian And Deontological Approaches

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When it comes to justifying what an individual perceives as moral, there are several different ethical theories that provide perspectives as to how situations are evaluated. These theories look at the consequences of the actions, what the agent’s intentions are, and whether the individual is being used as a means to end (May, 2014). Two of the founding theories of ethics are the utilitarian and deontological approaches which are demonstrated through the trolley scenario. While the best option would be to divert to a track with no one tied to it, a utilitarian would pull the switch to lead the trolley down the track to where there was only one person. This is based on the basic principle of utilitarianism that the good of many outweighs the good for a single individual. As Beauchamp and Kahn (2014) explain, this theory believes that something is correct if “it leads to the greatest possible balance of good consequences or to the least possible balance of bad consequences in the world as a whole” (p. 13). By pulling the switch, the individual would be saving five people, which is greater than the loss of one person. Based on …show more content…

This theory acts under the assertion that individuals should only do things if they expect all individuals to make the same decision and perform the same action if presented with the same situation (Beauchamp & Kahn, 2014). Since either situation is morally wrong as they both will result in the loss of life, making a decision to change the course of the trolley would actually be more immoral because the individual would be consciously making the effort to change the trolley’s course. By taking no action they would not be responsible for the consequences of what happens, but by changing the trajectory of the trolley they would be acting against the principle of not killing an innocent person as they would have played a part in the individual’s

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In this age of groundbreaking technology and completely autonomous cars, we are faced with several new morally challenging questions. This is the future and we have to answer them. If we don’t, we run the risk of never advancing as a species. Lauren Davis concurs with this statement in her article “Would You Pull the Trolley Switch? Does it Matter?”

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The alternative option of charging Samantha with a DUI according to act utilitarianism would cause a significant adverse effect. Charging Samantha with a DUI would cause Judge Robertson to turn against the entire police force and would likely result in fellow police officers mistreating Officer Jankowski. Officer Jankowski though would feel good about his choice of charging Samantha because it is the law and his duty. In addition this choice kept Samantha safe, and possibly other drivers safe. In this scenario Officer Jankowski causes the most harm to the audience.

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Philippa Foot presented a series of moral dilemmas when she discussed abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect. One famous problem of her was the trolley dilemma: “..he is the driver of a runaway tram which he can only steer from one narrow track onto another; five men are working on one track and one on the other; anyone the tack he enters is bound to be killed.” (Foot, 1967, p. 2) What should the driver do? Despite what he does, he will harm someone!1

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This theory is used in health and social care to make choices based on your own morals and what you feel is the correct way in which to behave towards service users and colleagues. The base of this theory is from the work of Aristotle and Plato. For example, Simon has assured Patrick Green that his health status will not affect his status at the centre, which shows he thinks Patrick should still be treated the same as before. This would benefit Patrick as he will not have to worry about what will happen when he returns to the martial arts class, as he already has a lot of other changes happening which he has to adjust

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I think I will divert the train to the right killing one person because one person is less important than five. Sometimes it is important to do what is right than what is morally good to do. The utilitarianism is a moral theory that gives happiness to the number of people in the society and it has been considered greatness, an action is morally appropriate if its outcomes lead to happiness and wrong if it results in sadness. I will begin by describing what Mill might do in the Trolley situation. Next, I will contrast what Kant might do in this situation and lastly, I will be also going to give my opinion on this Trolley situation.

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Utilitarian hypotheses bolster the thought

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Bernard Williams’ essay, A Critique of Utilitarianism, launches a rather scathing criticism of J. J. C. Smart’s, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian ethics. Even though Williams claims his essay is not a direct response to Smart’s paper, the manner in which he constantly refers to Smart’s work indicates that Smart’s version of Utilitarianism, referred to as act-Utilitarianism, is the main focus of Williams’ critique. Smart illustrates the distinction between act-Utilitarianism and rule-Utilitarianism early on in his work. He says that act-Utilitarianism is the idea that the rightness of an action depends on the total goodness of an action’s consequences.

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Trolley problem, initiated by Philippa Foot, is a situation in which there is a runaway trolley and the only way to save five people on the tracks is to sacrifice one person (Kvalnes, 2015). There are many versions of the trolley problem with regard to how the one should be sacrificed, make trade-offs in order for five persons to be saved. In this paper, there are two trolley case used to compare with the autonomous car case. The first case, called the switch case, come from Philippa Foot (1967), in which there is a third person who are standing next to a signal switch.

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A number of problems surround the second question; the most obvious of which are limited time, the limited capacity of human foresight to calculate the maximum number of happiness, and the inability of the theory to advise on the time frame utilitarianism is to be applied to; how do you know the maximum number of happiness for the next 10 years doesn’t mean greater overall unhappiness in the next 50 years, so what time period should one keep in mind when considering an issue from a utilitarian stand point, 1 year, 5 years, 10, 20? This lack of clarity further adds to the impractical nature of the ideology. There are a myriad number of situations which seem very difficult to resolve without employing utilitarian principles and a very good example is the widespread use of utilitarian principles in bioethics. The best example here would obviously be the famous case of the conjoined twins Mary and Jodie. The facts in front of the court indicated that Mary was the parasitic twin who shared a heart with Jodie.

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