Examples Of Utilitarianism In The Movie The Island

The Terri Schiavo case was a huge start of the “Right to Die” movement, the underlying cause of Schiavo’s collapse was never given a diagnosis. Consequentialist moral theories focus on how much good can result from an action. Non Consequentialist moral theories or Deontological theories, consider not the consequences of an action but whether they fulfill a duty. Some theories that can be used include utilitarianism, Kant’s ethics and natural law theory. Being aware of the case already, I believe there should be some sort of law that gives doctors to comply with the wishes of the patient if they are in a lot of distress.

Ethical theories are ways of telling right from wrong and include guidelines of how to live and act in an ethical way. For example when faced with a difficult situation in your life, you can use ethical theories to assist you in making the right decision. One key theory is consequentialism, which says that an individual’s correct moral response is related to the outcome/ consequence of the act and not its intentions/ motives. Early writers on this theory were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, a modern writer is Peter Singer. For example Brenda Grey has asked for the asthma specialist to visit her weekly, and to decide if this is necessary the professionals involved have to look at how it would affect her wellbeing. This is done by questioning

The concept of ethics entails systemizing, justifying, and recommending right and wrong conduct. It involves in practical reasoning: good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, rationality, and choice. Humanity has questioned this concept of ethics and ‘good’ for as long as it has survived, as it deals with real-life issues such as “what is morally right and wrong?” and “how do people ought to act?” Such ethical dilemmas can be found in people’s everyday lives, and although appears to be a straightforward question, there is much debate over which standard of behavior people should abide to when responding to certain situations, and determining what is morally right or wrong.

Bernard Williams’ essay, A Critique of Utilitarianism, launches a rather scathing criticism of J. J. C. Smart’s, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian ethics. Even though Williams claims his essay is not a direct response to Smart’s paper, the manner in which he constantly refers to Smart’s work indicates that Smart’s version of Utilitarianism, referred to as act-Utilitarianism, is the main focus of Williams’ critique.

Utilitarianism is the moral theory that the action that people should take it the one that provides the greatest utility. In this paper I intend to argue that utilitarianism is generally untenable because act and rule utilitarianism both have objections that prove they cannot fully provide the sure answer on how to make moral decisions and what will be the ultimate outcome. I intend to do this by defining the argument for act and rule utilitarianism, giving an example, presenting the objections to act and rule utilitarianism and proving that utilitarianism is untenable.

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. According to Jeremy Bentham, and John Mill Stuart happiness to them comes from

The divine command theory, utilitarianism, Kant’s duty defined morality, natural law theory, and Aristotle’s virtue ethics are the five types of ethical theories. The divine command theory states that what is morally right and wrong will be decided by God. Utilitarianism states that “Action “A” is morally right if and only if it produces the greatest amount of overall happiness. Kant’s duty defined morality states that what is important is acting for the sake of producing good consequences, no matter what the act is. Natural law theory states that people should focus on the good and avoid any evil. The last theory is Aristotle’s virtue ethics which states that we should move from the concern towards good action and to focus on the concern with good character. This paper argues that Aristotle’s virtue ethics is better than the other ethical theories.

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.

The alternative option of charging Samantha with a DUI according to act utilitarianism would cause a significant adverse effect. Charging Samantha with a DUI would cause Judge Robertson to turn against the entire police force and would likely result in fellow police officers mistreating Officer Jankowski. Officer Jankowski though would feel good about his choice of charging Samantha because it is the law and his duty. In addition this choice kept Samantha safe, and possibly other drivers safe. In this scenario Officer Jankowski causes the most harm to the audience. The number of people negatively affected by his choice is greater than the number of people who would benefit. Only Officer Jankowski and the potential other drivers Samantha may

John Stuart Mill, at the very beginning of chapter 2 entitled “what is utilitarianism”. starts off by explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions 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 happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”. (Mill, utilitarianism, p.697)

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory summed up by the phrase, the right action is one which creates the sum total amount of happiness for the greatest number. Therefore, utilitarians believe that morality’s purpose is to maximise the number of good things, such as happiness, and decrease the number of bad things, such as unhappiness, in the world. Critics of utilitarianism believe that this theory cannot accommodate moral rights since we go against our intuitions in moral dilemmas. However, utiltarians have a response to these criticisms which shows that utilitarianism is defensible.

As a child, most learn that sharing is caring. Giving something that is abundant to the individual to those who could benefit from it is a concept as old as civilization. Naturally, as humans, we seek to be happy and more often than not, make others happy. Thus the utilitarian view was created, but what does that mean? What exactly is happiness and how does one go about spreading happiness it to others? A man by the name of John Stuart Mill seems to be able to give us some answers to these questions.

As per the reading suggested by the instructor about the philosophical idea of Consequentialism (Utilitarianism) given by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill and the other concept which is given by Immanuel Kant in the critics of Utilitarianism theory which is called Deontological Ethics. The reading given made understand about all these two concept and their possible application in the policy or law making like the universal law.

Explain how the movie deals with consequentialism and non-consequentialism, particularly in the role the “Pre-Cogs” play in the movie and the idea behind Pre-Crime.

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? Utilitarianisms would answer the question in the affirmative and change the track so only one person has to suffer. However, we have to question if the Utilitarianism is applicable to such ethical questions (Smart & Williams, 1973). This essay will outline several strength and weaknesses of the Utilitarianism devised by Jeremy Bentham. Firstly, the Utilitarianism will be outlined, secondly some strength and weaknesses are explained by employing examples, and thirdly several solution approaches for dilemmas Bentham’s Utilitarianism is facing will be sketched.