Thomas Paine Case Study Of Act Utilitarianism

Looking closely at the case; it is noticeable that there was a delay of more than a year and a half between Madison’s observing the illegal behavior and reporting it to Mayor Pallin or John Carson. The delay suggest that Madison might have other motives to his whistle-blowing and this questions his integrity. Such motives might have been events or relationship changes that happened in early 1991. Perhaps he had a disagreement with the others or he was not satisfied with the recognition or compensations that he received. His Actions may also have had political motivations. On the other hand, his motives are irrelevant to fact that he acted properly in blowing the whistle. Even if Madison was acting unethically prior too blowing the whistle,

Utilitarianism is a subdivision of the Consequentialism theories which proposes that the correct moral conduct is determined by weighing its consequence. Utilitarianism has two general divisions; Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism points out that an act is right if it is likely to produce the most good for the most people. And this is the situation in this case, where maximizing the good can be obtained by minimizing the risk of harm for people’s lives that is likely to happen as a result of the illegal actions. The illegal actions must stop to ensure that people’s lives are not at risk. In other words, blowing the whistle is not a right thing to do, however, this can be broken and should be broken if doing so will produce more good in a given situation; i.e. saving people’s lives and punishing the

People have the right in life, liberty ...etc and other people had a duty to respect those rights. It’s Madison’s duty to respect the right of life of other people and that makes it necessary to take actions to stop any acts that might cause harm to people’s lives. Also, people have the right to be protected from those who could harm them, in this case, those wrong-doers must be punished to ensure that such actions will never occur in the future. This will restore the public confidence in the plant and the city itself, that someone is there to protect them from those that would harm them. Moreover, people have the right to know about things that concern them even if that would not bring any good; it is an absolute right. From this point of view, Madison’s whistle- blowing is justified by his duty to prevent any harm to people’s lives, and his duty to ensure that people are protected from such actions in the