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Short note on utilitarianism
About utilitarianism
About utilitarianism
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Short note on utilitarianism
About utilitarianism
About utilitarianism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong when looking at the outcomes. It believes that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Consequentialism is found in utilitarianism; consequentialism is largely thought about during war. When you fight for your life in war, you end up taking another person's life. While this may be good for your country, it is hurting a different country.
As we know consequentialism is the focus of an action that does more intrinsically good than bad, one kind of consequentialist theory is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an action that produces consequences that are more good over bad for everyone involved. In order to produce an action that is the best one a utilitarianist would consider both long and short term effects. Two sub categories of utilitarianism include act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. act utilitarianism bases an action on the overall well being produced by an individual.
With this two part concept each has its own individual positive and negative outcomes. With act-utilitarianism it is, “an act is right if and only if it results in as much good as any available alternative.” The positive in this becomes someone is always benefiting with either choice.
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.
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.
Utilitarianism is one of the best-known theory under the consequentialism, and its idea is the Greatest Happiness Principle(GHP). According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Utilitarian believe that the purpose of morality is to
In Mill’s moral theory, he defined utilitarianism as actions that lead to people’s happiness being right; those that lead to suffering are wrong. The act Utilitarianism theory provides an answer to moral issues and situations. Mill’s theory of moral issues allows for a unique perspective but has many flaws in the theory that need to be addressed. He said that Act Utilitarianism is the act that produces the most significant utility.
To compare utilitarianism to enhanced interrogations and find out if they are ethical or not, one must apply the 4 steps of utilitarianism. First, one must identify all the options (Banks, 2013). An example of this would be “one has the option of interrogating a suspected terrorist in an enhanced manner or to just ask questions in a calm fashion.” Second, one must identify all affected by the decision including individuals, organizations, and the community (Banks, 2013). An example of this would be “Those likely to be affected by the decision are the suspected terrorists or detainees, their friends and family, the military, and the whole country.”
The main principle of utilitarianism is happiness. People who follow this theory strive to fulfill the “ultimate good”. The “ultimate good” is defined as ultimate pleasure with out any pain. It is said that the pleasure can be of any quantity and any quality, but pleasures that are weighted more important are put at a higher level than others that are below it. This ethical theory also states that if society would fully embrace utilitarianism then people would naturally realize their moral standing in the
When discussing both act and rule utilitarianism, it is important to understand that both of them agree in terms of the overall consequence of an action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and morally right acts.
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.
Utilitarianism Justification of Exam Cheating Utilitarianism is one of the best ethical approaches that can be used to justifying a right action from a wrong action by focusing on the outcome of the path taken. The most important thing is that the action taken to achieve a certain outcome has to be of the greater benefit of the society at large. Whether the outcome is bad, it can be used to morally justify some deeds regardless of how inhumane they can be. On the other side, utilitarianism also does not justify everything because it is difficult at time to predict whether the actions taken will be good or bad at the end. Additionally, values cannot be accounted for.
Commonly, ethical systems are categorized into two major systems. The deontological approaches or normative ethical position which judges an action based on the adherence of the action to certain rules and the teleological approaches which judges primarily based on the consequences of an action (Hare, 1964). The Utilitarianism is assigned to the teleological approaches, as it does not evaluate an action by itself but by it’s
Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy that is credited to being created by Jeremey Bentham. Bentham believed that all humans make choices based on two feelings, pain and pleasure. Because of this, Bentham believed that motives are not good or bad in nature but instead on what feeling a human might feel more.
Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory based on the idea that an action is moral if it causes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. The theory is concerned with predicted consequences or outcomes of a situation rather than focusing on what is done to get to the outcome. There are many forms of utilitarianism, having been introduced by Jeremy Bentham (act utilitarianism), and later being updated by scholars such as J.S. Mill (rule utilitarianism) and Peter Singer (preference utilitarianism). When referring to issues of business ethics, utilitarianism can allow companies to decide what to do in a given situation based on a simple calculation. Many people would agree that this idea of promoting goodness