Utilitarianism In Middle School

534 Words3 Pages

An area in my life that I have followed utilitarianism, is when I was choosing who to be friends with in Middle School. When I was in Middle School, I was one of the athletes and because of that, I was fairly popular. I did not have a judgmental personality, so I became friends with whoever I had something in common with. However, since I loved science and mathematics, I had a lot of nerdy and geeky friends. So at lunch time, when I was sitting with my athletic friends, I would see one of my geeky friends sitting by themselves, so I would tell him to come and sit and eat lunch with me. My friends noticed that I was bringing "losers" to hangout with them at lunch and after school. My friends kept on telling me that I was starting to make them …show more content…

I became virtually a collectivist utilitarian because I wanted what my group of friends wanted as a whole, instead of what I wanted. Even as a teenager, I knew that I was strictly an individualist. I should never deny myself, just because the majority of people don 't want it. I am very happy to be a changed person, who will never do something as unethical as that.

I find it appealing when Kant talks about the "Golden Rule". The "Golden Rule" is accepted almost universally from people of different religions and even from the non-religious.

What I find discouraging about Nietzsche 's theory is that he believes that humans are incapable of being altruistic. He thinks that there is always an agenda when someone does something good. I believe that when someone does something altruistic, we should just accept it, instead of thinking what someone 's agenda is. I said in a previous discussion forum about the story of a man and his dog rescuing someone from drowning, without hesitation. So instead of thinking about the person and his dog 's safety, or thinking that God will bless him for this, he just dove right in. Another example is when a child falls down, I have noticed that people immediately pick the child up, even if they are not the parent or remotely thinking if God will bless them, sometimes it 's just a natural