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Utilitarianism In John Stuart Mill's Onora O Neill

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Utilitarianism focuses on maximizing overall happiness. As a result, utilitarians may use people as mere means in order to achieve maximum overall happiness. This could also be interpreted as if the sacrifice of a few leads to the happiness of many, then it shall be done. Onora O’Neill strongly disagrees with this line of thinking. O’Neill is a Kantian and she believes that people should not be treated as mere means. Rather these people should be treated as ends in themselves, and helped to reach a level of autonomous action. Kantians believe that people may be used as means. Means roughly translates into, “two parties taking part in transaction and reaching a consent” (O’Neill, p.512). Treating others as means is a natural process of our lives. Buying goods and selling goods, involve people consenting and that is completely fine. Mere means, on the other hand, translates into, “a maxim to which they could not in principle consent” (O’Neill, p.512). In order for there to be no consent involved in a transaction, this means that either violence, deception, or coercion was used, which in Kant’s view is wrong. O’Neill …show more content…

People have become increasingly insensitive to other’s suffering and people need to be reminded that helping others is required of us. A common concern that is brought up with helping impoverished people is creating a system that properly assists people in achieving a level of autonomous action. In America today, people are constantly arguing and complaining about the current welfare system. Many people believe that the current welfare system enables people to grow increasingly dependent of assistance. Referring back to O’Neill’s thoughts, “There is no royal road to this result and no set of actions that is likely to be either universally or totally effective. Too many changes are needed…” (O’Neill,

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In Defense of Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill In the excerpt from John Stuart Mill’s book, Utilitarianism, Mill defends the utilitarian theory against three different objections. The first, and strongest opposition to utilitarianism was the accusation that the emphasis on the pursuit of pleasure makes utilitarianism “a doctrine worthy of swine.” This was my favorite argument because Mill defended it so well stating that there are varying degrees of pleasure. He refers to them as “high” and “low” pleasures, which I do agree with.

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In regards to Jonathan Kozol’s essay Shame of The Nation, believes that apartheid schooling is prevalent in America and it has worsen overtime. He uses this essay to open the eyes of Americas who might not be aware of the apartheid school system in urban America today. This essay also showed how segregation is caused not by force, but by factors working together to keep blacks and Hispanics stuck in the inner city while middle class, mostly whites, move outward. A phenomenon that has been established to keep minorities at the lower socio-economic domain in society. The state of inner city schools has declined significantly.

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The wellbeing of other people is important. This theory also states that we should not use people merely as a means to an end. Instead “check that the act will treat other persons as ends in themselves” (O’Neal 412) which would promote giving money to the homeless person. We should try to act in a way that benefits others. At the same time, we cannot fulfill all what others want because “their wants are too numerous and diverse, and of course, sometimes incompatible” (O’Neal 414).

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What really is welfare? According to Joan J Johnson in her book Children of Welfare, “Welfare is not just one program; it is many. Each of the programs that make up ‘welfare’ is designed to aid a specific aspect of the recipient’s daily life. All are designed to help the poor and/or needy survive” (Johnson 21).

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It could be argued however that this complements the social workers value that “the promotion of empowerment must be upheld” (BASW 2012), by convincing people to help themselves they are left empowered and self-reliant rather than relying on others. It is more likely however that this is one of those aforementioned new spheres of values that conflict with the traditional social work values, and is the domain of political ideologies that have aimed to reshape the humanist social work models (Bernard 2008), thus the value of money (funding) is placed above the fundamental value of the acts flagship concept of “wellbeing”. In fact the government regards this of such importance that they have added a whole section to the

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M. Hare’s argument, it can be seen that there exists some issues with utilitarianism. Or, simply apply utilitarianism to this world, and use utilitarianism code to make every decision is wrong since the code of utilitarianism loss consistency in real world. According to utilitarianism, the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility, or happiness. However, happiness is complex. It is generally acknowledged that people who have their physical and emotional needs satisfied and their human rights guaranteed are happy.

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America is certainly a rich country. But it contains a lot of people surviving on incomes more common in developing countries. How society chooses to treat these people is cause for concern. There is an elitist culture in America. If one doesn’t fit into this bubble of perfection - with the white picket fence, two kids and a dog - then you are often faced with an uphill battle.

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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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John Stuart Mill, at the very beginning of chapter 2 entitled “what is utilitarianism”. starts off by explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” “By Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”.

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Immanuel Kant’s moral theory differs greatly from the other theories we have learned about, especially Mill’s view of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is based on the consequences of actions, while Kantian Ethics focuses on the intentions a person has before they act, and if they are fulfilling their duty as a person when acting. Kant explains his theory by providing examples of different people who are all doing the same action, but for different reasons. He discusses a store owner who charges everyone equal prices and explains that this only has moral worth if he is acting from duty, meaning he does this because it is what is right. The act is not moral if he acts in accordance with duty, or because he is worried about his reputation or business.

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Once Marin Luther King expressed, “Our social welfare system is so much more than just charity. Everyone must help, whether you are rich or poor. Everyone must have the belief that there’s always someone in a much worse situation than I am, and this person I want to help as a comrade”. Martin Luther King’s statement holds true that social welfare and health care should be the act of providing something for someone who does not have it. However, the modern debate with regards to social welfare and health care is that who should be providing the means.

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