Utilitarianism is the ethical viewpoint that every decision should be based on trying to create the most amount of “good” for the most people. The “good” in this case is the utility – the positive consequence we should strive for. Utility is the foundation of utilitarianism‚ as the name suggests‚ and it keeps the welfare of people as its highest consideration. Jeremy Bentham‚ an English philosopher‚ proposed his own idea of how utilitarianism should work. He determined that utility could be measured
Premium Utilitarianism Ethics Hedonism
Consequentialism is such a theory in which “An action is permissible if an only if it has the best consequences.” Consequentialism states a connection between permissibility and value: producing the best consequences is what makes an action permissible. So‚ according to consequentialism‚ rightness depends on goodness. Suppose there is a situation in which one could perform only one of three alternatives action: X‚ Y‚ and Z. If performing either X or Y results will be equally good but that performing
Premium Ethics Utilitarianism Morality
Mind and Machine August 20‚ 2012 In Peter Singer’s article “Famine‚ Affluence‚ and Morality” there are a few items that require further discussion. Peter Singer critiques our ordinary ways of thinking and in spite‚ very few people have accepted his conclusions. I will discuss Peter Singer’s goal and his presented argument in relation to this issue. In return‚ I will also mention the three counter-arguments to his position and the responses made by Singer. It is important to define Singer’s concept
Premium Wealth Donation Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Zehra Dada Philosophy essay-Is consequentialism a defensible theory of ethics? Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with morals and the difference between right and wrong‚ good and bad‚ vice and virtue. Consequentialism is a complex theory of ethics which states that the consequences of an action are the only criteria which determine its moral correctness. Utilitarianism is an extension of consequentialism in that it says that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its usefulness
Premium Ethics Morality Utilitarianism
Tuskegee Research Project • 1. What were the ethical implications of the decisions taken at the time of the study? In reading and doing some research on the subject above I believe that some of the ethical decisions of this case were that there was never an informed consent from the men that this study was conducted on. The participants were not informed of all the known dangers‚ participants had to agree to an autopsy after their death‚ in order to have their funeral costs covered
Free Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill
Consequentialism and Utilitarianism Consequentialism‚ as its name suggests‚ is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things‚ but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts‚ which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act‚ such as the motive
Premium Utilitarianism Ethics Peter Singer
The textile industry in Bangladesh employs three million people and makes up 80% of the country’s exports (ABC News 2013). However‚ there is a history of unsafe working conditions and deaths (Ahmed and Peerlings 2009; Ahmed 2004‚ 38). A factory collapse recently killed over 1000 workers and as a result‚ various companies are signing a safety accord (Ferguson and Jolley 2013). This is an ethical decision that can impact those company’s stakeholders. The decision can be made under various ethical models
Premium Ethics Business ethics Justice
Occupy Wall Street Movement Sherron. L. Moore Professor Diane McGeehan Business Ethics February 2‚ 2013 Occupy Wall Street is a movement that started in New York in 2011. The movement was started as a means to rise up against political and economic corruption and injustices. There slogan “We are the 99%” refers to how the rich are the 1% and everyone else is paying the price for the mistakes and selfishness of the 1%. Some of the moral and economic implications are fairness‚ care
Free Utilitarianism Ethics Business
Utilitarianism was a movement in the 18th century that soon would become one of the paramount ethical philosophies the world would contemplate. The basic principle of Utilitarianism involves calculation of happiness‚ in which actions are deemed good if they tend to produce pleasure and evil if they promote pain. A fairly simple concept‚ it would coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Influence by Bentham‚ another philosopher‚ John Stuart Mill would follow with a very similar‚ yet ideologically
Premium Utilitarianism Ethics John Stuart Mill
In the field of normative ethics‚ utilitarianism is a perennial philosophical view. Utilitarianism holds that a “morally right action is that which produces the most good” and promotes the maximum utility of happiness; for humanity (the aggregate). John Stuart Mill‚ a contributor to the field of utilitarianism‚ embraced Jeremy Bentham’s ‘greatest-happiness principle’ that states “the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong” . Mill offered an alternative to
Premium Utilitarianism Ethics John Stuart Mill