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Flaws Of Act Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that insist that the best action is one that generates the most happiness/good. There are two subcategories of utilitarianism, which are act-utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Both subcategories of unitarianism theory has led to many debates over its effectiveness in our modern society due to many believing it has too many flaws. Supporters of both utilitarianism views believes that it gives a clear and easy to understand guideline and helps with making tough decisions. Though utilitarianism does give some helpful guidelines with life it still has many flaws that causes it to lose its effectiveness. Both act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism have unique and very similar flaws. The first …show more content…

This leads to many negative complications because of its subjectivity. One being the doctrine of psychological egoism. As stated by Ramon M. Lemos, in his research titled Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, psychological egoism is “ the view that every time a man(individual) does something he does it in order to promote what he conceives to be his interests or welfare or happiness or pleasure.” (Lemos 540) It's only human nature for one to have this subconscious urge to act in way which benefits them self before others. This causes one to make bias decisions ones that benefit him before others, which in turn lowers the reliability of act-utilitarianism. Not to mention, in the real world life is much more …show more content…

Rule-utilitarianism as stated by Smart and William in the book previously mentioned, “is the view that rightness or wrongness of an action is to be judged by the goodness and badness of the consequences of a rule that everyone should perform the action in like circumstances.”(Smart and Williams 9) Though similar to act-utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism main difference is that it's about maximizing good/happiness through setting up certain moral codes that contain rules. This allows for supports of rule-utilitarianism to literally have guidelines or rules on how they should live there life. However, this raises many issues one being rule

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