ACT UTILITARIANISM We need to determine the positive and negative consequence of John’s action on John and the students involved. John stopped students from using their phone, which is precisely the positive outcome he wanted (+12). The students cannot figure out why their phones do not work, but they cannot ask because they will get in trouble, this must cause the students some frustration (-2 per student). If this is a regularly size school bus there are about 70 students on it. Many of the students use their phones; we will define “many” as two-thirds ( total). We can assume that this rule is in place for the benefit of the school community (+10). We conclude that the short-term consequences for John were positive and for the students where …show more content…
The long-term consequences, if any, are not certain (). However, they can only make the change in utility even more negative. Therefore we conclude that his action was wrong. RULE UTILITARIANISM What would the consequences be if everyone who did not want people using a cell phone secretly used a jammer to stop them from using their phones? Cell phones would become very unreliable. There would be lots of frustration for the cell phones users unaware of why their phone is not working. Trying to find service would waste peoples time, a definite harm. Because the harms are much greater than the benefits, it is wrong to secretly use a cell phone jammer and therefore John’s action was wrong. KANTIANISM John’s actions are a form of censorship and Kant was against censorship. As the book says, “Kant believed he was living in a time in which the obstacles preventing people from exercising their own reason were being removed. He opposed censorship as a backward step” (Quinn, p. 124). By installing a cell phone jammer on his bus without telling the students, John is not respecting the students’ autonomy. Instead, he is treating them as a means to the end of not allowing cell phones on school buses. Therefore, his action is wrong according to the second formulation of the Categorical