Hedonistic Utilitarianism

1. How is the lottery an example of the utilitarian monster?
Utilitarianism is an ethics that is based on the outcome and not on how that outcome is achieved. It is based on the principal that a belief that benefits majority must be preferred. That means that all the choices made can be categorized as being generous or miserable, honestly or dishonestly dealt, irrespective of the way but must make more individuals happy. Money minded utilitarianism will measure happiness in terms of money. When we consider lottery, we need to think that there is going to be a winners that will be happy and those who didn’t win will be either bit sad or won’t care. The next question that a utilitarian will consider is the degree of happiness or sadness. The level of happiness will be enormous for the winner and others associated with him but the sadness will be negligible by those who did not win a lottery. Those who did not win do not lose hope and are seen buying another lottery ticket and may waste heaps of money for years. Besides that money raised from lottery is often used for social wellbeing programmes and
The lottery case when viewed from the hedonistic utilitarianism’s point of view then the lottery is ethically recommendable because it serves the welfare not only of the winner but also of the millions of losers. Winners of the lottery will be finding enormous pleasure from their victory and the money they have won but the money that is collected as a result of these lotteries is also providing pleasure to many more. The money from the lottery ticket is used for social welfare programme that will provide pleasure to many more and there would be no pain involved in it. Thus from Hedonistic Utilitarianism perspective ethically lottery can be recommended as it serves the welfare of both the winners as well as that of millions of