The Theory Of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a philosophical idea that can be used by individuals, governments or agencies, in which the purpose is to help pick an action to take. According to Utilitarianism, the action one should take show be the action that produces the most pleasure and the least pain for everyone involved. In order to make this decision, Bentham suggests using a hedonic calculus, through which you "...sum up the numbers expressive of the degree of good tendency, which the action has, with respect to each individual..." (198). This would then give you a number in which you can estimate how much pleasure is caused by a specific action, from which you should choose the action that leads to the most pleasure and the least amount of pain. In order to
For instance, in Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," the community of Omelas chooses to live in a way in which one small child has to suffer for their entire life in order for everyone else in the community to be happy. According to Utilitarianism theory, this the most moral way to live for this community because pleasure is maximized since everyone feels pleasure except for one person in the who community. This, however, raises the question if it is morally right to let someone suffer for the purpose to maximize your own pleasure. While for the community of Omelas, there is maximized pleasure, but for the child there is maximized pain. If all lives are of equal value why should this child have to suffer in order for the masses to have more pleasure. Therefore, Utilitarianism not only does not account for individual rights, it also goes against the idea that all lives are equal since it can allow for the suffering of one person so long as the rest of the society has a maximized degree of
I believe this is morally wrong because every life has equal value and is of equal importance. If one person has to suffer for everyone to experience maximized pleasure, then it is wrong to allow everyone to have maximized pleasure. Rather, everyone should experience pleasure and pain not just one person experiencing pain. If every life is of equal value then everyone should experience an equal amount of pleasure and pain. This situation, however, is impossible to create, but it should be the ideal distribution. Furthermore, this theory allows for bias between people because if you had to choose who to throw off a boat and you had to make a choice between someone who makes you happy or someone who maximizes pleasure for the majority of the people, by Utilitarianism you must choice the other person. This is also wrong because every life if not treated equal since a person who maximizes pleasure for others would then be considered more valuable than a person who makes a few people happy. Therefore, Utilitarianism is not compelling because it does not every life as