Contemporary Political Philosophy by Will Kymlicka

1284 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Utilitarianism philosophy

Will Kymlicka’s book, “Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction,” discusses various political philosophies including utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is made up many different aspects including different accounts. The account of utility that I will be discussing is the informed preference satisfaction. Like any part of philosophy, this account of utility has its strengths and weaknesses in practicality and plausibility. I believe that the informed preferences account is a practical attempt to ensure a person’s or society’s well-being is maximized in a well informed and rational way of decision making.
The ‘informed preferences satisfaction’ of utilitarianism is an attempt to accommodate the problems of preferences that are mistaken or adaptive by defining welfare as satisfying one’s rational and informed preferences, opposed to just one’s preferences. In this view, Utilitarianism tries to satisfy the preferences by obtaining the full information about them and correctly judging them. By filtering the preferences, we cast out the ones that are mistaken and irrational. This process seeks to provide preferences that better their life and that have a good reason to be preferred (Kymlicka 16).
The informed preference approach states that those preferences that are adaptive or irrational should be filtered out. When in practice, there is no real way for the government to determine this directly. It would involve obtaining vast amounts of information about every person’s background, capacities, emotional make-up and other things. Of course, no one really wants the government to be collecting such intimate information about him or her (Kymlicka 19).
Although the government cannot be as thorough and direct in filtering preferenc...

... middle of paper ...

...ttempt at ensuring the well-being of a person or of society as a whole. I believe that the informed preference satisfaction approach has good and rational intentions in ensuring that well thought out and smart life decisions are made. This account of utility is essential to life, not just political philosophy.
The informed preference satisfaction account of utility is discussed and examined thoroughly by Will Kymlicka in his work, ““Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction.” The objections to the account are well merited but the overall purpose and intentions of this account of utility are logical and best for increasing the welfare of society. The informed preference satisfaction account is essential to the world’s well-being

Works Cited

Kymlicka, Will. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Part VI of Ronald Munson’s Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Bioethics

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nineteenth century British philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill sum up their theory of Utilitarianism, or the “principle of utility,” which is defined as, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Munson, 2012, p. 863). This theory’s main focus is to observe the consequences of an action(s), rather than the action itself. The utility, or usef...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast John Hospers And Rule Utilitarianism

    1570 Words  | 4 Pages

    Utilitarianism is a moral theory that states that an action is considered right as long as it promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This theory was first proposed by Jeremy Bentham and later was refined by J.S Mill. Mill differs from Bentham by introducing a qualitative view on pleasure and makes a distinction between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. John Hospers critiques utilitarianism and shows that rule utilitarianism under more specific and stricter rules would promote utility better. Bernard Williams believes that utilitarianism is too demanding from people and instead believes virtue ethics is a better solution. Williams seems to have only considered act utilitarianism instead of rule utilitarianism, which may have better responses to the problems proposed by Williams. Sterling Hardwood purposes eleven objections to utilitarianism which can be used to help make compromise between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. I will argue that rule utilitarianism can be formed in such a way that it avoids the problems that arise from Williams, and Hardwood.

    Read More

  • Utilitarian's Ethic and Politics: What is the Purpose of Human Life?

    1654 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Utilitarianism is the theory which fund the morality on the utility, and affirms that the true utilitity for and individual can't not always get along with the general utility. The utilitarianism fixes as a starting point the thought which recognize that one of the condition of human nature is to think firstly about his own interests: the morality consists in recognize that the utile of the single coincide with the utile of the others. Historically the Utilitarianism found himself in the English philosophy. The term ''utilitarianism'' was used for the first time by J. Bentham, and with that he designed the fundamental character of his own philosophic system. Bentham affirms also the need of all the utilitarian philosophies to create the ethic as an exact science: a rigorous calculus on the quantitative difference of the pleasures. The Utilitarianism broaden also in the juridical and political field, with the proposition of radical reforms. It was then the ce...

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    The problem with Utilitarianism is not that it seeks to maximize happiness. Rather, it is that Utilitarianism is so fixated on generating the most happiness that the need to take into account the morality of the individual actions that constitute the result is essentially eradicated. In so doing, the possibility of committing unethical actions in the name of promoting the general welfare is brought about, which in turn, renders Utilitarianism an inadequate ethical

    Read More

  • Is rule-utilitarianism preferable to act-utilitarianism

    1769 Words  | 4 Pages

    Classical utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory which holds that an action can only be considered as morally right where its consequences bring about the greatest amount of good to the greatest number (where 'good' is equal to pleasure minus pain). Likewise, an action is morally wrong where it fails to maximise good. Since it was first articulated in the late 19th Century by the likes of Jeremy Bentham and later John Stewart Mill, the classical approach to utilitarianism has since become the basis for many other consequentialist theories such as rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism upon which this essay will focus (Driver, 2009). Though birthed from the same utilitarian principle of maximising good, rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism provide two very different accounts on how the maximising of good should be approached. This essay will compare these two approaches and try to ascertain whether rule-utilitarianism is indeed preferable to act-utilitarianism.

    Read More

  • The Principle Of Equality In Thomas Christiano's The Rule Of The Many

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    (65) He believes it would be impossible to figure out how equality of preference satisfaction would be practically implemented, and lastly he argues that the “contestability of comparisons” argument proceeds from the notion that there is considerable disagreement about what interests are the most important and how one will value the importance of the satisfaction of those interests (64-66).

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism, Economics and Ethics

    1747 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine a child living in a hot, government owned apartment in Chicago. He has no father. With his single, jobless mother he struggles to the words of the founding fathers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...” (The Declaration of Independence). This is one of the most famous phrases in the US Declaration of Independence and has become the underpinning of the dreams of millions of people around the world. Although the words are different, these sentiments are reflected in the political and economical policies of many democracies. While the notion of ‘happiness for all’ seems like the obvious solution to many of our persistent problems, we inevitably encounter conflicts between our actions and our morals. “The state is based on……the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities.”(Marx, 1992). This essay focuses on the issues of a prominent theory, Utilitarianism as it blends and encompasses both areas of Economics and Ethics which have become the basis of our governmental bodies.

    Read More

  • Preference Theory and Well-Being

    1864 Words  | 4 Pages

    A preference theory is a philosophical theory that the fulfilment of preferences is the only thing that matters in contributing to well-being. Well-being can be seen as what people ultimately want to achieve; the “ultimate good”1. In terms of preference theory, for you to reach the state of well-being then you must have your preferences satisfied. Preference theories can be split into two distinct categories, actual preference theory and ideal preference theory2. Actual preference theory deals with preferences people actually have, regardless of misinformation or irrationality, while ideal preference theory is interested in what we would “hypothetically” prefer, if we were completely informed and rational3. In this essay, I will be arguing against the account of well-being that actual preference theory posits, and attempt to prove that it is incorrect by showing that the fulfilment of preferences does not always have consequences that are conducive to well-being, and therefore that actual preference theory's account of well-being is ultimately wrong

    Read More

  • Arguments Against Utilitarianism

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a philosophical approach, utilitarianism generally focuses on the principle of “greatest happiness”. According to the greatest happiness principle, actions that promote overall happiness and pleasure are considered as right practices. Moreover, to Mill, actions which enhance happiness are morally right, on the other hand, actions that produce undesirable and unhappy outcomes are considered as morally wrong. From this point of view we can deduct that utilitarianism assign us moral duties and variety of ways for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain to ensure “greatest happiness principle”. Despite all of moral duties and obligations, utilitarian perspective have many specific challenges that pose several serious threats which constitute variety of arguments in this essay to utilitarianism and specifically Mill answers these challenges in his work. These arguments can be determinated and analyzed as three crucial points that seriously challenges utilitarianism. The first issue can be entitled like that utilitarian idea sets too demanding conditions as to act by motive which always serves maximizing overall happiness. It creates single criterion about “being motived to maximize overall happiness” but moral rightness which are unattainable to pursue in case of the maximizing benefit principle challenges utilitarianism. Secondly, the idea which may related with the first argument but differs from the first idea about single criterion issue, utilitarianism demands people to consider and measuring everything which taking place around before people practice their actions. It leads criticism to utilitarianism since the approach sees human-beings as calculators to attain greatest happiness principle without considering cultural differ...

    Read More

  • Kant vs. Mill: Human Rights and Utilitarianism

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mill, J. S., Bentham, J., & Ryan, A. (1987). Utilitarianism and other essays. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.

    Read More

  • Exploring Scheffler's Aspirations in Moral Theories

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    Just think, what good is a moral/ ethical theory if you can just ignore some parts of the theory by saying it doesn’t apply to me or forget about it. Overriding is explain in that nothing should top morality. Morality is then therefore a law unto itself. These ideas will be used to question and explain if Utilitarianism is an ideal moral theory. Utilitarianism emphasize two big ideas, the greatest happiness principle and that each action should be judge to be moral by their consequences. The Greatest Happiness Principle states that, the action that produces the greatest happiness for everyone is the best course of action to be taken. So this paper will evacuate how The Greatest Happiness Principle of Utilitarianism can fits in the areas of Scheffler ideals of Pervasiveness, Stringency/ demanding and overriding. Explain why even if Utilitarianism fits the aspirations description of what a true moral theory is many would not consider this the way to live. While the Greatest Happiness Theory would considered to be the ideal feature of an ethical it fail to predict the future, will is why I argued on the base on Scheffler theory

    Read More

  • Political Philosophy

    1755 Words  | 4 Pages

    Aristotle, Locke, and Hobbes all place a great deal of importance on the state of nature and how it relates to the origin of political bodies. Each one, however, has a different conception of what a natural state is, and ultimately, this leads to a different conception of what a government should be, based on this natural state. Aristotle’s feelings on the natural state of man is much different than that of modern philosophers and leads to a construction of government in and of itself; government for Hobbes and Locke is a departure from the natural state of man.

    Read More

  • The Case Study Concerning Joelle

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory in which determining the rightness or wrongness of action or decision is based on determining whether the greatest benefit or happiness will be provided in the highest or greatest number of population. This simply means that action or decision must be based on the highest amount or number of beneficiary (Martineau, 2006). However, this ethical theory has two major types. First is the “act utilitarianism” and second is the “rule utilitarianism.” Act utilitarianism specifically adh...

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism in Government

    1664 Words  | 4 Pages

    In its political philosophy utilitarianism provides an alternative to theories of natural law and the social contract by basing the authority of government and the sanctity of individual rights upon their utility, or measure of happiness gained. As an egalitarian doctrine, where everyone’s happiness counts equally, the rational, relatively straightforward nature of utilitarianism offers an attractive model for democratic government. It offers practical methods for deciding the morally right course of action - “...an action is right as it tends to promote happiness, wrong as it tends to diminish it, for the party whose interests are in question” (Bentham, 1780). To discover what we should do in a given situation, we identify the various courses of action that we could take, then determine any foreseeable benefits and harms to all affected by the ramifications of our decision. In fact, some of the early pioneers of utilitarianism, such as Bentham and Mill, campaigned for equality in terms of women's suffrage, decriminalization of homosexuality, and abolition of slavery (Boralevi, 1984). Utilitarianism seems to support democracy as one could interpret governments working to promote the public interest and welfare of citizens as striving for liberty for the greatest amount of people. While utilitarianism at its heart is a theory that calls for progressive social change through peaceful political processes, there are some difficulties in relying on it as the sole method for moral decision-making. In this essay I will assess the effectiveness of utilitarianism as a philosophy of government by examining the arguments against it.

    Read More

  • Deontology In Nursing Essay

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    Two ideologies that exist in ethics and apply to decision-making are utilitarian and deontological viewpoints. Ethical theories provide a systematic approach to decision-making toward the applications of standard principles. “In utilitarian ethics, outcomes justify the means or ways to achieve it” (Mandal, Ponnambath, & Parija, 2016, p. 5). Decisions made considering utility are based benefitting the greatest number of people. In utilitarianism, outcomes determine the moral nature of interventions. Some people are to experience harm, but the overall outcome is good for most individuals. Applying utilitarianism personally or professionally seems relevant when considering its ideology maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. Utilitarianism

    Read More

More about Contemporary Political Philosophy by Will Kymlicka

Open Document