Utilitarianism: “Actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness‚ wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” John Stuart Mill utilitarianism‚ 1863 Utilitarians founder Jeremy Bentham has a famous formulation that is know as the “greatest-happiness principle”. The definition of this is “the ethical principle that an action is right in so far as it promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number of those affected”. Central Beliefs: There are seven
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Paper #1 In A Critique of Utilitarianism‚ Bernard Williams argues that when following a Utilitarian approach for moral dilemmas‚ Utilitarianism might have us sacrifice or modify our moral integrity. Williams explains this argument with a hypothetical execution situation with protagonist Jim. Jim‚ who is a botanical expeditionary‚ accidentally wanders in the central square of a small South American town. There‚ he finds twenty Indians tied up in a row‚ with several armed soldiers standing in front
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Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that assesses an action as morally right and just if it produces the most amount of net happiness. There are two forms of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism is the standard form‚ which considers all paths of the action that lead to immediate and long-term happiness‚ as well has the magnitude and how long the happiness will last. Furthermore‚ if all paths lead to the same amount of net happiness‚ each
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conceptions on human nature and how we as human beings should go about living our lives. They also have strong cores and there purpose is very clear. According to utilitarianism humans have two masters’ pain and happiness‚ only good actions will achieve happiness and will also minimizes pain. In one sentence you can describe utilitarianism as “the greatest good for the greatest amount of people”. While in the other hand the Kantian ethics is what defines us as a person is our rationality and autonomy
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“Utilitarianism is not compatible with a religious approach to ethics” To what extent is this a fair statement? Ultimately utilitarianism is a way of improving the lives of most people‚ and religious ethics also aims to act out of compassion and love to improve the lives of others. For example‚ Christianity has certain rules that benefit those in society. We know that they work as many of those rules are tied in with the laws of the country. For instance‚ Murder and stealing are both illegal and
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and saving chaos it makes it ethical‚ from a utilitarian standpoint. According to utilitarianism one must consider the consequences of a certain action. So in this case the magistrate must weigh the pros and cons of the decision to execute this man. The magistrate must be a utilitarian because he decided to kill the innocent man in an attempt make the majority of people calm. Utilitarian’s also believe in the idea of attaining happiness or pleasure. Therefore making a decision to kill the man the
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I think Utilitarianism is the most morally right thing to do in situations where human lives are involved. I believe this because in a situation where you can either save nine humans lives but you have to kill one or you just don’t do anything and let the nine people die and one survive I think it is only logical to pick the option where you save the most lives. However some people will say that using utilitarianism shouldn’t be used because you would be regarded as a murder which is a sin and is
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of the biochemical produced a cure causing thousands of lives to be saved‚ then this may make him a good person. The result of this biochemical produced happiness for the masses by saving lives and curing disease. Considering the principle of utilitarianism is pleasure of the masses‚ the result of his actions would now be considered moral due to the amount of happiness that was produced. Although this may be a simple explanation of the scenario‚ other factors must be taken into account‚ such as
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to others. A good state of affairs is based off of a matter of opinion. What some consider “good” affairs; others may consider “poor”. The statement‚ there is no single objective sense of a good state of affairs holds truth. Philippa Foot’s Utilitarianism and the Virtues states‚ “ It can never be right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better” (198). Foot is correct‚ however‚ this statement doesn’t say what specifically would be considered worse or better. If Jenny‚ the green thumbed outdoors
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The theory behind utilitarianism is that one’s actions are right if it promotes happiness or pleasure and wrong if it does not promote happiness or pleasure. The main point to this theory is the principle of utility that states “according to which actions should be chosen that bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.” (Palmer) Jeremy Bentham gave essentially utilitarianism its name and brought more attention to it than those before him. Bentham came up with
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