Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong when looking at the outcomes. It believes that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Consequentialism is found in utilitarianism; consequentialism is largely thought about during war. When you fight for your life in war, you end up taking another person's life. While this may be good for your country, it is hurting a different country.
Title: Philosophy of Development Name: Jitendra Kuldeep Roll No: 13110044 Word Count: 1659
“To wing your course along the middle air; if low the surges wet your flagging plumes; if high, the sun the melting wax consumes”. This is the advice that Daedalus, the inventor from a renowned Greek myth, gave to his son Icarus when he was about to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father made. In order to control his wings, Icarus had to keep a constant distance between the sun and his wings. However, he eventually disregarded his father’s warning and filled with the exhilaration of flying. With the greed to fly as high as he could, he flew too high and too close to the sun.
Jieni Peng CA1 “What Makes Right Acts Right” by W.D Ross In the article “What Makes Right Acts Right” by W.D Ross, he debates the about idea of duties and how humans in general understand if their actions are correct. Ross mentions that humans do not deliberately execute their duties because of the consequences resulting from those duties. Rather, they perform those duties because of an innate form of common sense that humans possess inside of themselves. One example of this is the act of fulfilling a promise that an individual made to themselves or others not because of the end results but because of their sense of “duty.”
Terrorism means a lot of different things but the most generic definition is the use of violence or intimidation in pursuit of political aims. Brutus committed terrorism when he killed Caesar because he thought Caesar had too much power (Shakespeare. 3.1). The main reason Brutus wanted to kill Caesar was that he was too powerful. He saw so much ambition in him and decided to kill him. If Brutus did it for a different reason, he may have not been guilty but he did it for political aims.
Brave new world - Essay I look at this from a utilitarian perspective were the moral thing is to do the most good for the most amount of people. The individual, while important in any sense, is only relevant in terms of the community as a whole. It is very similar to the question of individual versus collective happiness. The happiness of the most amount of people is better than letting the individual decide for oneself.
The variation between the two is that act utilitarianism states that an action is correct only when it brings good to the situation verses any other choice you could have made. Rule utilitarianism states that an action is correct if we followed the given rules that were made in order to have the greatest chance of achieving the most amount of
Rule utilitarianism attempts to fix the flaws of act utilitarianism by being stricter on how we should make our decisions. However, rule utilitarianism has the dilemma that sometimes rules can come into conflict with one another. Suppose someone told you a secret and you promised not to tell anyone, but you later find out that secret will harm someone else. Rule utilitarianism holds that people should keep their promises, but also that they should work to not harm anyone. This exposes the main dilemma to rule utilitarianism, and if the rule utilitarian were to say that depending on the situation some rules can be broken, then that just leads right back to act utilitarianism and how it depends on each situation.
The New World is Aldous Huxley’s description of a utopia governed by its motto, “Community, Identity, Stability” (Huxley, 15). A society deprived of any human characteristic deemed dangerous towards the stability of the society. Human beings fertilized in bottles; identity, gender, intelligence, position in society, all controlled by the government. Citizens beings classified in the order of hierarchy: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Every possible technology at the disposal of the World Controller is used to ensure social stability and increase happiness amongst their citizens.
When discussing both act and rule utilitarianism, it is important to understand that both of them agree in terms of the overall consequence of an action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and morally right acts.
Suppose a conductor is driving his train and the breaks are defect. The rails lead directly into a cluster of five people who would all die if the train will go this direction. However, the conductor can change onto another track where only one person is standing hence only one person would die. How should the conductor react (Hare, 1964)? Is it possible to condense the problem to a rather simple maximization problem in example that the action is taken, which would kill the least people?
The Republican Theory Thus far we have been uncovering different views and perspectives of the universe within the sociological studies. These have included the Utilitarian Theory and the Liberal Theory of Justice. Now our readings have taken us beyond these theories, and has introduced us to an entire new principle, The Republican Theory. Although the theory itself has the same name as a political party within the United States, it should not be confused with the same beliefs of those in the Republican party.
As per this theory the outcome of any action should minimize the pain and maximize the pleasure. The utilitarianism have two groups one is the Act utilitarian’s focun on the effects of individual actions (Such as Nathuram Godse’s assassination of Mahatma Gandhi) and another is rule utilitarian’s those focus on the effects of types of actions (such as killing or stealing) Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and happiness) in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things (such as pain and unhappiness). They reject moral codes or systems that consist of commands or taboos that are based on customs, traditions, or orders given by leaders
Moral theories are theories that help us distinguish between a right or a wrong action. Adequate moral theories help us understand that what we should or shouldn’t do in certain situations. Two of the most famous moral theories are Utilitarianism and Kantianism. According to Utilitarianism, an action is right if only if it out of all the other action gives out the maximum utility. In oppose to that, Kantianism says that an action is right if and only if, in performing that action, the person does not treat anyone as a mean and treats everyone as an end in itself.
So, what is act utilitarianism? Act utilitarianism is best defined as a value of consequences of the act when it is determining whether it is the right act and if it brings about the greatest good consequences for all. In addition, for most act utilitarian’s, they do think that even though telling the truth is a moral action , but if it brings about the greatest good for everyone from immoral acts, it can be considered as ethically moral or immoral in the eyes of the law based on situations. From the observations of the movie, the Island, an act utilitarian would view this movie based on the different situations that takes place. As an example from the movie, the Island, Jordan two delta, known as Scarlett Johansson which is the clone, in the outer world has made the right act based on the consequences in which she diversified the mind of the working policemen by saying “open the door “while holding up a gun and the military officer, Albert Laurent shoots two of the working policemen in the isolation of the outer world in order to save the lives of the lottery winner people who is caught inside the door while suffocating to death.
