Comparison Of Utilitarianism And Jeremy Bentham And Kantian Ethics

Immanuel Kant and, originally, Jeremy Bentham developed two very popular, mistakenly similar yet different theories on ethics. In this paper I will outline the main points of each theory and then relate them to modern times. I believe that today’s society could both fall into a Kantian moral standing, but more so I believe that today’s generation handles ethics with more of a utilitarian approach. The modern day democratic system is simply laid out in a utilitarian ethical standard. Kantian ethics was developed by Immanuel Kant towards the end of the Enlightenment period. Kant’s big establishment theory was known as The Categorical Imperative theory. The authors of Introducing Philosophy state,

“The conception of universal conformity to

Jeremy Bentham made utilitarianism popular in the late 1700’s and it evolved from there. Bentham believed that people naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain, and from this he created the principle of utility. Robert Cavalier, a professor at the philosophy department at Carnegie Mellon, breaks down the principle of utility into this easy

Mill responds with, “Of the two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experienced of both give a decided preference, irrespective of a feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.” (Mill 511) When comparing the Kantian and utilitarianism one must break it down into details in order to accurately define the two. Kantian ethics are based off of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you want done in return.” Utilitarian ethics are achieved when the majority of people are pleased with an action, even if the minority gets hurts and/or disagrees with the action. Now let’s look at these ethics and how they play into our society today. “Winner takes all” and “majority rules” are two common phrases used throughout our government daily in which utilitarianism is being projected. Johnathon Riley, author of Ethics Vol. 100, claims in his essay that representative democracy is representative