Utilitarianism And Moralism

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After more than two thousands years, the same discussion topic is among the philosophers world. Until today, no one can be sure and give an exact answer on the question concerning the foundation of morality. With John Stuart Mill, there will have a whole new view of the concept of morality and its implications and applications. Defined as a doctrine in which actions that are morally good should be actions that promote happiness, utilitarianism is mainly concerned with "the greatest happiness", or "the greatest good for the greatest number”. However, it is clear that daily life often confronts us with situations in which applies individualism. Based on this fact, can we really use the concept of utilitarianism as a basis for morality? For a better understanding, we should know what are the utilitarian principles and how are they apply. According to Mill’s, utilitarianism is a consequence-based theory. Whether an action is morally right or wrong depends entirely on its consequences. In fact by taking into account the right or the wrong consequences of our actions, we do not take into account only our own interest but the interest of everybody as whole. We must not forget that Mill defines utilitarian principle as the" greatest happiness principles" which holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (mill, 7). From this definition, it becomes pretty simple to apply the utilitarian principle as an every day rule. In fact, to judge of a morality of an action, you just have to evaluate the good and bad consequences of this action. According to me, it is important at this point to understand what mill defines as good and bad. For Mill, the good is ... ... middle of paper ... ... interests of all are to be regarded equally" (mill, 32). Mill needs this argument so people cannot get away with evil acts such as killing someone for the greater good of society. Even if the majority of society might benefit from having this one-person dead, Mills uses the perfect obligation argument to explain why this is not ethical to do because we all deserve certain rights. Mill claims that happiness is the ultimate good and the ultimate end of human being. According to me human being is applying this principle in his everyday life. By trying to attain our own happiness, we deal with situations where the happiness of others has to been taken into account. Thus, by applying the “rule utilitarianism” and taking into examples the previous situations others may have face, we can really improve our life and may be find a basis for the foundation of morality.

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