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Pros And Cons Of Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism’s advantage is its universality and impartiality (Cave, 2015). As Shaw (2006) writes, utilitarianism considers everyone’s happiness of equal value; furthermore, by its additive nature, one’s happiness can be added to another’s and thus be quantifiable. This allows the weighing-in of right and wrong. On the face of it, weighing up the pros and cons of a situation for all concerned both presently and into the future appears to be a reasonable method of ethical analysis. In addition, encourages the utilitarian to practice and employ logic. However, in utilitarianism’s goal to maximise pleasure over pain, some immoral behaviour are tolerated while at the same time, its innate impartiality may lead to ruthlessness (Shaw, 2006). To illustrate, if diagnosis is withheld as requested and treatment is delayed, the treatment choices may become limited or be more expensive. If, when allocating resources, the State decides it is better to spend resources on the majority who can be saved than on an elderly man who has a poor prognosis, then the State may consider John’s concern as irrelevant . Utilitarianism also demands a vast amount of empirical knowledge to arrive at a plausible prediction; therefore, the time taken to make decisions could be lengthy (Ahlstrom, 1998). John could face a painful death while waiting for …show more content…

For example, given that Pam has been wrong in predicting John’s acceptance of initial treatment, she could also be wrong about how John will react to the news. Pam also considered merely the happiness of John and their family without thinking of the repercussions on the medical establishment. The public may lose faith in the system if the medical community is flippant about upholding patients’ rights. Thus, Pam limited her prediction to the holiday without considering other factors after the

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