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Rule Utilitarianism

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When discussing both act and rule utilitarianism, it is important to understand that both of them agree in terms of the overall consequence of an action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and morally right acts. According to Jeremy Bentham, and John Mill Stuart happiness to them comes from …show more content…

Rule utilitarian’s believe that they must obey the rules and must have a moral code in order to fulfill and maximize happiness and pleasure. Meaning that rules and laws that produce better results should be enforced. Rule utilitarianism focuses on the deontological theories, meaning that their principle is that we as human beings should not do evil, and should be optimistic and that the good will follow after that. This type of theory focuses on the rules and duties that the individual must use in order to reach the greater happiness and pleasure. In addition, rule utilitarianism has adapted a couple of outlooks that emphasize the importance of the moral code after the action has been committed. According to rule utilitarianism, a particular action is right as long as it’s done in the context of obeying the rules. In the case of drunk driving act, utilitarianist will prohibit such actions because it conflicts with the current rules and regulations. The rule utilitarian perspective it's problematic because firstly it would not grant the person full pleasure, and because of the possibility of causing more pain. Therefore, rule utilitarianism then focuses on rule makers that chosen the perfect equation to minimize the pain that an act might cause to people. In this perspective the aim of rule utilitarianism is to promote general happiness, “the law is justified by the safety of the people” (Blackburn 77), an example of that would be seatbelt and helmet laws. The reasons why the rules are imposed is to avoid people from making mistakes because they do not know what is best for them, so having the rules has the advantage of making the majority of people

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Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory that claims that the morally right action is the one that produces more good and fewer dire consequences for everyone than any other action. Rule utilitarianism is a version that emphasizes the importance of following rules that promote the most important overall happiness or well-being for the most significant number of people. James Rachels, in his work "More Impertinent Distinctions and a Defense of Active Euthanasia," argues that in the case of euthanasia, "if an action promotes the best interests of everyone concerned, and violates no one's rights, then that action is morally acceptable." He argues that "in at least some cases, active euthanasia promotes the best interests of everyone concerned

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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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Bernard Williams’ essay, A Critique of Utilitarianism, launches a rather scathing criticism of J. J. C. Smart’s, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian ethics. Even though Williams claims his essay is not a direct response to Smart’s paper, the manner in which he constantly refers to Smart’s work indicates that Smart’s version of Utilitarianism, referred to as act-Utilitarianism, is the main focus of Williams’ critique. Smart illustrates the distinction between act-Utilitarianism and rule-Utilitarianism early on in his work. He says that act-Utilitarianism is the idea that the rightness of an action depends on the total goodness of an action’s consequences.

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As a college student, I am always keeping myself updated with different new university policies because many policies are impacting my college life. Although many policies are impacting me in school, college tuition is the most important to me. The increase of college tuition at U.C and CSU will cause many problems for students. The school administration thinks that is the time to increase student tuition, but students will not benefit from the increase. Therefore, my paper will offer a utilitarian evaluation of the recent CSU and UC increase in tuition, it will show that said policy is unethical from a business and social standpoint.

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In the novel these rules are needed for the civilization to thrive and not become chaotic. “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re the English, and the English are the best at everything. So we’ve got to do things right”

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The major concept that utilitarianism represents is that the larger the group of people happy there is a greater possibility that the action or act committed is morally correct. Since utilitarianism is founded upon the principle that an action is morally right if it produces a greater quantity of good or happiness than any other possible action. Also that even though it is not prominent in today’s society utilitarianism does play a big role we see it in our justice system along with how our politics are run and how officials in high positions are elected. And not even that when we are making big decisions we take into account the thought and opinions of other

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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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Now, let’s analyses the same scenario using a utilitarian perspective. What would Bentham say about this action? For Bentham, the moral worth of an action solely depends on its contribution to the overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure and minimizing pain as summed among the people. According to Bentham, “An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it,”(14). In his utilitarian approach to abortion, Bentham would use the hedonic calculus which he designed to weigh up the pain and pleasure generated by the available

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Introduction In this essay, I will be comparing Deontology to Utilitarianism. I will attempt to substantiate why I am justified in arguing that Deontology is a superior moral theory than Utilitarianism. A Discussion of the Main Elements of Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a moral theory developed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1947 – 1832) and refined by fellow countryman John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873).

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The variation between the two is that act utilitarianism states that an action is correct only when it brings good to the situation verses any other choice you could have made. Rule utilitarianism states that an action is correct if we followed the given rules that were made in order to have the greatest chance of achieving the most amount of

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The three different versions of Utilitarianism are, Act, Rule, and Preference Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism states that a person’s act is right if and only if it produces as many

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Commonly, ethical systems are categorized into two major systems. The deontological approaches or normative ethical position which judges an action based on the adherence of the action to certain rules and the teleological approaches which judges primarily based on the consequences of an action (Hare, 1964). The Utilitarianism is assigned to the teleological approaches, as it does not evaluate an action by itself but by it’s

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Title: Philosophy of Development Name: Jitendra Kuldeep Roll No: 13110044 Word Count: 1659

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Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory based on the idea that an action is moral if it causes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. The theory is concerned with predicted consequences or outcomes of a situation rather than focusing on what is done to get to the outcome. There are many forms of utilitarianism, having been introduced by Jeremy Bentham (act utilitarianism), and later being updated by scholars such as J.S. Mill (rule utilitarianism) and Peter Singer (preference utilitarianism). When referring to issues of business ethics, utilitarianism can allow companies to decide what to do in a given situation based on a simple calculation. Many people would agree that this idea of promoting goodness

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