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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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The difference between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism is the way they evaluate actions and its consequences. This means that Act Utilitarianism evaluate actions by the consequences of the act by itself, while Rule Utilitarianism evaluate the effect of any action by the amount of good or bad consequences that it cause in general. However, both are based principally in the consequences of the actions either general or specific. In my opinion, the better ethical theory is Rule Utilitarianism because it judge the actions based on the consequences it bring to society in general, and not just the consequences it brings itself.

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Objection To Act Utilitarianism

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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.

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Utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism, is an ethical theory for determining whether an action is morally right or wrong. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that the utilitarian advocates that the most ethical action is the one that brings the greatest amount of good to the greatest number of people. In particular, this theory argues that the only relevant effects of actions are the good or bad consequences they produce. Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the good (happiness and pleasure) and decreasing the bad (unhappiness and pain). They consider morality to be true if it contributes positively to humanity (Nathanson, 20 Mar. 2018).

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Utilitarianism says decisions should benefit the majority over the minority. This could lead to an oppressive majority that would only make decisions that benefit them without caring at all about the effects on the

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Examples Of Utilitarianism

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The difficulty with utilitarianism is that no one knows all future consequences of your actions. The theory makes people do the right things for the wrong reasons. For example, “Mean” Mark has one goal and that goal is to intentionally hurt someone. While he’s trying to hurt certain people his plan messes up and maximizing goodness thus making him moral. The most important part about this ethical theory is the mathematics that has to be done.

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