When it comes to utilitarianism, the definition or what it actually is differs from one person to another depending on their situation. It all boils down to one question: “What will make the most people the most happy?” Even though it seems like an easy question to answer, the decisions you must face in answering it are not. Should you make yourself happy or should you make others happy? Is it okay to sacrifice the happiness of a couple of people if it makes everyone else happy? What happens to the few who get sacrificed for the happiness of the many others? Philosophically speaking, utilitarianism is the belief that a morally good action is one that helps the greatest number of people. John Stuart Mill starts off by stating very little progress has been made when it comes to setting standards to judge what is morally right or wrong. Mill’s thoughts and reasoning on what he believes utilitarianism counts for, especially in the specific categories he has mentioned, are correct in many eyes. Believe it or not, the idea of utilitarianism turns up in our daily lives ever since we began ...
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that seeks to define right and wrong actions based solely on the consequences they produce. By utilitarian standards, an act is determined to be right if and only if it produces the greatest total amount of happiness for everyone. Happiness (or utility) is defined as the amount of pleasure less the amount of pain (Mill, 172). In order to act in accordance with utilitarianism, the agent must not only impartially attend to the pleasure of everyone, but they must also do so universally, meaning that everyone in the world is factored into the morality of the action.
Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, and they are not satisfied with physical pleasures, but they strive to achieve pleasure of the mind as well.
In defining utilitarianism, J.S. Mill counters the popular belief that this theory only deals with the pleasure yielded by actions of individuals by stating that, "the theory of utility... [is] not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure... together with exemption from pain" (596). He goes on to argue that the foundation of this principle lies in the fact that an individual's action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to "produce the reverse of happiness" (597). For example, an enemy forcibly entered your village with the intent on killing every woman and child in town if no one turned over the sniper that took some of their men out. If you tell them who the sniper is, no harm will be done to the women and children, but since the sniper is long gone, you decide to tell the enemy that the town bum is the sniper. Since you judge his life to be of least worth in all of the village in terms of future goodness, would it be right to send him to his death? The answer is yes, this act would be the right act as it would promote the happiness in the rest of the village because his life isn't worth the hundreds of lives of women and children (Paraphrased from Joyce, ...
Promote human flourishing and ameliorate suffering. However, there are two large flaws with the Utilitarian perspective, first that good consequences do not determine the right thing to do. Just because something immoral had good consequences in the long run does not make it okay. A Utilitarian would respond by saying one sacrifice to save ten people. This conflicts with morality because there is no circumstance where murdering an innocent person is acceptable. The second flaw is that it is impossible to live by because it is too demanding. If there is always something more you can do, you should sacrifice all of your time and money to do better for the world. Utilitarisnism should be taking into consideration what it means to be
In utilitarianism the common goal is to create the most happiness for the most amount of people. Mills definition of the Greatest Happiness Principle “holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (540) If this principle is the case then as a utilitarian your actions of good should promote the most happiness. This way of thinking can really produce some wrong answers and actions to moral questions. For example, say you and your family are starving and in need of food. The only possible way to get food would be to steal it. In general society finds it morally wrong to steal under any circumstances. But as utilitarian you have to ask, would my actions of stealing food promote the most happiness for the most people. You need to take into account the people you are making happy and the people you are hurting. On one hand, you would be promoting happiness for you and your and entire family, and on the other hand, you would be hurting the storeowner by stealing some of his revenue. Utilitarian ideas tell you that you should steal the food because your actions are promoting happiness and the absence of pain for the least amount of people. There are other examples I found when doing some research like doctors going against morals to save more sick people by letting one healthy person die
Utilitarianism is the view of considering everyone’s benefit as equally important versus only considering my own. For any action, the morally correct thing to do is cause the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure or benefit for the greatest number possible; while at the same time causing the least amount of pain or unhappiness for the smallest number possible.
The main principle of utilitarianism is the greatest happiness principle. It states that, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure" (Mill, 1863, Ch. 2, p330). In other words, it results with the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people that are involved.
Many traditions and values of the American society are beneficial, but some are harmful. Acceptance of utilitarianism will preserve beneficial traditions while replacing the harmful ones. As a result, new traditions, grounded in reason, will emerge, and future generations may wonder how the irrational and unnatural non-utilitarian values had survived for so long.
Utilitarianism can be defined as: the right action is the one that produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarians seem to believe that humans only have two desires, or motivations: happiness and pain. They want as much happiness as possible and the least amount of pain as any other action. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, meaning that whether it is right, depends solely on its consequences.
In his essay, Utilitarianism Mill elaborates on Utilitarianism as a moral theory and responds to misconceptions about it. Utilitarianism, in Mill’s words, is the view that »actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.«1 In that way, Utilitarianism offers an answer to the fundamental question Ethics is concerned about: ‘How should one live?’ or ‘What is the good or right way to live?’.
In this paper, I will define and explain Utilitarianism, then evaluate the proofs made to support it. In the nineteenth century, the philosophy of Utilitarianism was developed by John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism is the theory that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Jeremy Bentham is acknowledged as the father of Utilitarianism, it was Mill who defended its structure through reason. He continually reasoned that because human beings are capable of achieving conscious thought, they are not simply satisfied by physical pleasures; humans desire to pleasure their minds as well. Once a person has achieved this high intellectual level, they do not want to descend to the lower level of intellect where they began. Mill explains that “pleasure, and
Utilitarianism is a reality, not just a theory like many other philosophies; it is practiced every day, for instance the vote system. This ongoing practice of utilitarianism in society has show that it is flawed. Just because the masses vote for something, doesn’t make it right. The masses can be fooled, as in Nazi Germany for example, thousands of people were behind Hitler even though his actions were undeniably evil. Utilitarianism is a logical system, but it requires some sort of basic, firm rules to prevent such gross injustices, violations of human rights, and just obviously wrong thing ever being allowed. This could be the ‘harm principle’ which Mill devised.
...ause of the adaptability of moral principles to utilize in situations such as George the chemist. George illuminates that happiness and suffering are very hard to compete with each other, and even if more happiness is on the table, it can lead to suffering and possible injustices that may occur. In the grand scheme of things, utilitarianism will not be able to work in all situations because it causes injustices and lacks integrity. Opposition to utilitarianism says that a correct moral theory will never require us to commit injustices, so utilitarianism is not the correct moral theory. Concluding that utilitarianism is a good moral theory to start from, because it spells out a goal and a consequence, but when these aspects are mixed up in the situation, ranking and the specificity of happiness are what it all comes down to. Maximize happiness and minimize suffering.
Utilitarianism is defined to be “the view that right actions are those that result in the most beneficial balance of good over bad consequences for everyone involved” (Vaughn 64). In other words, for a utilitarian,