Rule Utilitarianism
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 …show more content…
Rule utilitarian’s believe that they must obey the rules and must have a moral code in order to fulfill and maximize happiness and pleasure. Meaning that rules and laws that produce better results should be enforced. Rule utilitarianism focuses on the deontological theories, meaning that their principle is that we as human beings should not do evil, and should be optimistic and that the good will follow after that. This type of theory focuses on the rules and duties that the individual must use in order to reach the greater happiness and pleasure. In addition, rule utilitarianism has adapted a couple of outlooks that emphasize the importance of the moral code after the action has been committed. According to rule utilitarianism, a particular action is right as long as it’s done in the context of obeying the rules. In the case of drunk driving act, utilitarianist will prohibit such actions because it conflicts with the current rules and regulations. The rule utilitarian perspective it's problematic because firstly it would not grant the person full pleasure, and because of the possibility of causing more pain. Therefore, rule utilitarianism then focuses on rule makers that chosen the perfect equation to minimize the pain that an act might cause to people. In this perspective the aim of rule utilitarianism is to promote general happiness, “the law is justified by the safety of the people” (Blackburn 77), an example of that would be seatbelt and helmet laws. The reasons why the rules are imposed is to avoid people from making mistakes because they do not know what is best for them, so having the rules has the advantage of making the majority of people
More Impertinent Distinctions And A Defense Of Active Euthanasia
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Abortion According To Bentham's Utilitarian Perspective
400 Words | 2 PagesNow, let’s analyses the same scenario using a utilitarian perspective. What would Bentham say about this action? For Bentham, the moral worth of an action solely depends on its contribution to the overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure and minimizing pain as summed among the people. According to Bentham, “An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it,”(14). In his utilitarian approach to abortion, Bentham would use the hedonic calculus which he designed to weigh up the pain and pleasure generated by the available
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117 Words | 1 PagesThe major concept that utilitarianism represents is that the larger the group of people happy there is a greater possibility that the action or act committed is morally correct. Since utilitarianism is founded upon the principle that an action is morally right if it produces a greater quantity of good or happiness than any other possible action. Also that even though it is not prominent in today’s society utilitarianism does play a big role we see it in our justice system along with how our politics are run and how officials in high positions are elected. And not even that when we are making big decisions we take into account the thought and opinions of other
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852 Words | 4 PagesThe 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
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1217 Words | 5 PagesRule 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.
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