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Kantianism Vs Utilitarianism Essay

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Humans have complex minds and motives, and it is because of this that we use “ethics” as a way to dictate behavior. However there are many opinions as to what exactly constitutes ethical behavior. These differing opinions stem from how the person was brought up to see the world, whether it be in wealth, poverty, culture, personal experiences and so on. Ethical theories are derived from a way at looking at certain actions and how to appropriately respond to them according to what that theory considers “ethically correct”. There are two ethical theories that I believe have the most prominence in society and I would like to discuss those – Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Utilitarianism is an interesting theory that aims to predict what the consequence …show more content…

Utilitarianism does have some solid guidelines as it strictly concludes that no matter what; the most happiness should become the outcome. Kant’s theory is also rather strict in this sense which is probably the only real comparison these two theories share. Unless you take into consideration a “Rule utilitarian”, where some acknowledgement of what is fair and just but it ultimately still always comes down to whoever can benefit the most. Although because of the rule portion of utilitarianism there is some leniency as to how judgement is able to be carried out whereas with Kantianism the judgement is still concrete and absolute – This is can directly contradict the previous similar comparison (McCormick, n.d.). There are more blinding differences between these two theories though. Kantianism suggests that if the outcome whether it produce more happiness is a result of taking advantage of humans to get there, then it should not happen, period. With utilitarianism this is not the case. Simply put, more happiness is better because it affects more people. So if uncomforting one person ultimately comforts ten then so it must

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I personally strongly disagree with Utilitarianism in general, and especially with the Greatest Happiness principle. Personally I think many things are wrong with it, including the fact that people can’t see the future and determine the consequences of their actions, the fact that it allows immoral behavior in the name of increasing overall happiness, that it allows for government laws to be broken in order to increase overall happiness, and the way it disregards the motive behind an action. In theory it sounds like it would be a fair and moral ethical principle because it promotes the good of the majority, but when broken down I think the Greatest Happiness Principle has major flaws. The Greatest Happiness Principle is Mill's notion that any action that endorses happiness and/or the absence of pain is good or right.

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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

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A man by the name of John Stuart Mill seems to be able to give us some answers to these questions. Mill starts our inquiring journey with defining what utilitarianism stands for. In short he states that it is the construction of utility, which claims that the actions that stimulate happiness in is morally fit and vice versa to be unfit. Happiness is something that we want for

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Similarly, happiness is subjectively relative which may vary depending on the context and also the same situation may vary from the pretext; hence it is impossible to "prove" the viability of happiness and utilitarianism in an individual level (VEENHOVEN, 1990). The concept of Utilitarianism

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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

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