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Utilitarianism: Morally Right Or Wrong?

706 Words3 Pages

Utilitarianism is when an effort is made to try and provide an answer to a practical question. Utilitarianism relies on a theory of intrinsic value. They believe it’s possible to compare the intrinsic value to compare two actions and predict which one would have a better consequence. Utilitarian’s don’t always refer to a choice as a moral issue (West). According to Mill, “acts should be classified as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the agent compelled, not merely persuaded, and exhorted, to act in a preferred matter. A moralist can sum up the units of pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to be affected, immediately and in the future, and could take the balance as a measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action” (West). The moral value of an action can be based on what is called hedonism. This says the only thing can be good is pleasure or happiness. Utilitarianism shows how moral questions can have objectively true answers. This provides a method to figure out …show more content…

He also does not think you deserve moral credit when you do the right thing to someone because you expect to get something out of it. Kant believes that if you do something that benefits you it’s easy and doesn’t require much effort and you aren’t going out of your way to help someone else. He says that when you do the right thing it’s because it’s your duty and morally right and you know that you did the right thing and made a difference. It required some actual time and effort that didn’t benefit you in anyway except that it’s your duty. Kant feels that we must use reason and logic to get credit and you know when you have done the right thing. Then after performing these duties and using reason you will deserve moral credit and know that what you did was the right thing to do

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This contributes to my journey to attain the good because it makes me see that all of the comments I’ve held back, things I’ve sacrificed for relationships, and energy I’ve put in were for something. Kant’s theory of the good is to do our duty for no other reason besides that it’s our duty. Learning the lesson of commitment teaches me to achieve good because I act faithful, understanding, and open, simply because it is my duty in a relationship. By learning the lesson of commitment I can better follow Kant’s theory of achieving the

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In his brief essay, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”, Immanuel Kant emphasizes how essential it is to be truthful and how our duty to be truthful outweighs any other duties we have to ourselves to ourselves or to humanity. Altruistic can be described as a genuinely moral act. People who are altruistic take action for the benefit of others and deem other people’s interests more important than their own interests. Kant believes that people should always do what is right, no matter what the outcome holds. I affirm that Kant believes praising truthfulness above all other duties because he believes it is morally wrong to hurt the dignity of others.

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First, I will summarize utilitarianism. According to James Rachels, “Utilitarianism can be summed up in three propositions: (a) The morality of an action depends on the consequences of the action. (b) An action’s consequences matter only insofar as they involve the greater or lesser happiness of individuals. (c) in the assessment of consequences, each individual’s happiness gets equal consideration.”

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A number of problems surround the second question; the most obvious of which are limited time, the limited capacity of human foresight to calculate the maximum number of happiness, and the inability of the theory to advise on the time frame utilitarianism is to be applied to; how do you know the maximum number of happiness for the next 10 years doesn’t mean greater overall unhappiness in the next 50 years, so what time period should one keep in mind when considering an issue from a utilitarian stand point, 1 year, 5 years, 10, 20? This lack of clarity further adds to the impractical nature of the ideology. There are a myriad number of situations which seem very difficult to resolve without employing utilitarian principles and a very good example is the widespread use of utilitarian principles in bioethics. The best example here would obviously be the famous case of the conjoined twins Mary and Jodie. The facts in front of the court indicated that Mary was the parasitic twin who shared a heart with Jodie.

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Also, volunteering to sell our organs does not mean losing altruistic values of giving an organ and commodifying does not mean the only thing of value is money. In Kantian theory, you must perform the right action for the right reasons. The good will is the good in itself. Reasons, means what makes a good will good, is its compliance to act in accordance with the obligations dictated by reason.

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He says that one must act not only in accordance to duty, but for the sake of duty However, According to the Utilitarianism, Mill emphasizes that the actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness Immanuel Kant is the founder of the Kantian branch of ethics and morality, and his theories are personally my favorite theory of ethics so far. According to the utilitarianism, the best action is the one that maximizes utility. However, in Kant’s moral philosophy, people

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(Mill, utilitarianism, p.697) To put this into simpler terms, Mill is essentially saying events or experiences are desirable only when it is a source for pleasure, so actions are good when they lead to higher levels of general happiness and they are deemed as bad when it lowers your general level of happiness. However, it is important to note utilitarianism doesn’t say it is morally right for everyone to purse what make them alone happy but instead morality is dictated by what increases the total amount of utility in the world. Pursuing your own happiness at the expense of the majority of social happiness would be viewed as wrong by utilitarian’s. Mill then proceeded to say that morality requires impartial consideration of the interest of everyone involved, its not just about your own happiness.

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Suppose a conductor is driving his train and the breaks are defect. The rails lead directly into a cluster of five people who would all die if the train will go this direction. However, the conductor can change onto another track where only one person is standing hence only one person would die. How should the conductor react (Hare, 1964)? Is it possible to condense the problem to a rather simple maximization problem in example that the action is taken, which would kill the least people?

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