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.
2016). Using this ethical framework to argue against torture, one needs to consider the violation of the terrorist’s rights. Utilitarians argue that under a scenario where thousands of people are in danger, the well-being of the larger community is more important than neglecting the rights of a single individual (Krauthammer 2005). The simple idea of taking away a person’s autonomy for the sake of others violates rights ethics. To comprehend the violation upon the victim’s rights, it is important to understand how torture feels, “Brian describes his body as having become an object… pain is the central reality; it dominates experience and expression (Wisnewski 2010, 81).”
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
Consequentialists would evaluate if the inherent moral issues of torture can be balanced out by the possible advantages of averting large-scale harm and protecting lives of innocent people. Calculating the possible advantages and damages associated as well as the balance between opposing rights are key components of the ethical evaluation. The trade-off between competing rights must be carefully considered in light of the consequentialist viewpoint. On the contrary, there is a moral need to reject torture, emphasizing the value and dignity that each person possesses inherently. On the other side, there is the moral right of innocent people not to be murdered or harmed, which has enormous moral
Exactly, you would want your child to be saved as well. That 's one of the major flaws I see in utilitarianism. The rule of utilitarianism is that the decision that brings the most happiness should be made. I 'm not saying the disabled child wouldn 't bring any happiness, I 'm saying in this case the neighbor 's four kids would bring more happiness to society rather than the disabled one. The act of utilitarianism is a cruel system, but if one wants to incorporate into society then they should incorporate it completely rather than
Marissa King Professor Mataresse Phil 240w Can you ever justify torture? I believe at times it is morally permissible to torture a human. Specifically, when the pain will result in the most happiness; for example, if a human, who was suspected of placing a bomb in a stadium full of people, is tortured in order to find the bomb to save the most people that are possible, would in fact, result in the greatest happiness. Because if it turned out that the human was not tortured and many died, there would be greater suffering than happiness in the end. In my opinion, greater happiness helps society more, than great suffering, because I think it is just human nature to favor greater happiness instead of great suffering.
The kidnapper was prosecuted and sentenced to life imprisonment; however the officer ‘was also prosecuted and convicted of violating the kidnappers rights’ (Sandel, 2011). This presents an interesting moral dilemma, can torture ever be justified? And was the officer acting in a morally respectable way? In this essay I will answer these questions by analysing the arguments which justify or condemn his actions, from both the utilitarian and deontological perspectives.
Using torturing methods in the Interrogation of one person may help to unveil very important information to prevent current and future possible plotting of terror activities. For terrorists, the utilitarian principle gets to apply hypothetically. Torture is acceptable and justifiable because the torturer subjects only one person to excruciating pain to save many people who are at risk. Torture of Terrorist helps avert danger, torturing somebody only causes temporary physical pain to them, but the killing threat aspect of terrorist causes thousands of permanent damage in terms of death and destruction. The advantages of torture bypass the cost of torture.
The best exemplification of that argument adopted by people sharing this view is a hypothetical scenario known as the “ticking-bomb”; whereby an interrogator is informed that there is an imminent attack threatening a huge population of people and there is clear evidence that the person being interrogated is withholding vital information regarding the place of the bomb. What is more, the interrogator is proficient at torture techniques and through causing physical and psychological suffering can extract the required information that will save the lives of countless people. Hence the question to be asked is whether or not to move forward with torture. This leaves the people who believe that torture is wrong with a moral dilemma, for if they were to say “no” then they are placing their moral correctness ahead of the lives of those in danger. By following such narcissistic reasoning they have failed to be compliant with their moral values; however, there are others that believe that the moral thing to do is to sacrifice ourselves.
Torture, though it may never have a solid answer, is at times justified through morals or thought to be necessary. As a form of capital punishment, persecution is wrong because each human being not only has rights, but is unique and precious. In the perspective that cruelty happening to save the lives of other human beings, the question of whether torture is acceptable then is raised. The topic of torture can be seen in many various perspectives, but four of those include utilitarianism, Kantian duty-based ethics, virtue ethics, and Christian-principle based ethics.
Today I learned a lot from the presentations in class from some philosophers theories and my classmate's opinions on these theories. Utilitarianism was one of my favorites and this theory seemed to care for people the most and how they are affected by a situation. I favored this idea because it is very close to my very own personality because before I take a serious action I put a lot of thought into consideration before proposing a decision. I am very considerate of others feeling and I think about how will my actions make this person feel or will it affect others so I guess that is why I took the concept of utilitarianism very personal and found this very interesting.
The utilitarianism is common approach to make ethical decisions. The main point of this approach is that you have to make that decision which comes with the most utility. The utility in this approach can be described as „The good”, and the opposite of this is „the bad”. This means that in Computer Science you have to produce a computer programme or a hardware, which produces the largest amount of good , and during the producing phase, it makes the least amount of bad, for all who are affected: customers, employees, and even the enviroment. With the utilitarian viewpoint people can make right, and ethical decisions, for instance if you produce a programme which can make life easier for millions of people, you should not sell it for extremly
Suppose a conductor is driving his train and the breaks are defect. The rails lead directly into a cluster of five people who would all die if the train will go this direction. However, the conductor can change onto another track where only one person is standing hence only one person would die. How should the conductor react (Hare, 1964)? Is it possible to condense the problem to a rather simple maximization problem in example that the action is taken, which would kill the least people?
The morality of an action is determined by the outcome of that action. At an initial glance, Utilitarianism seems as if it would be a superior way to live a life full of good will, as it is focused on doing the most
Utilitarianism is a morally demanding position for two reasons, First reason is it theory asks us to do the most to maximize utility not to do the minimum and second reason is to set aside
