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Jeremy Bentham's Theory Of Utilitarianism

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If I held a utilitarianism belief I would be looking at maximizing happiness (Sandel, 2009). Jeremy Bentham states we are governed by our feelings of pleasure and pain. The utilitarian approach uses this for the basis of maximizing the pleasure of the community as a whole. Sometimes individual rights can be sacrificed to save the happiness in the majority of the community. According to the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, the utilitarian view would seek to maximize the overall good. They would consider the good of others as well as their own. The decisions they make would have the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. They would look out for the welfare of the whole community, not just one person. The example in question two, …show more content…

The utilitarian view would sacrifice the baby for the greater good. If the baby was sacrificed, and the commander did as he stated, then there would only be one loss over thousands. Sacrificing the life of one and saving the lives of all the others would be the right thing to do. This would have greater benefit over most of the community. They would be looking at the welfare and freedom of the community. Their virtue would be to save as many lives as possible, this would benefit more people and be for the greater good. Although, this very decision could also go against the utilitarianism view. Jeremy Bentham believes that humans are ruled by two things: pleasure and pain (Sandel, 2009). Choosing to save the lives of thousands would bring feelings of pleasure

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