Act Utilitarian

The USSR has been accidently bombed by the US and now the President of the USSR is deciding whether to bomb New York City in the United States and cause the same damage of 7 million plus deaths in the US or declare a full-scale nuclear war against the US, which would cause over 100 million deaths in the US and the USSR. I will argue that using extreme deontology mindset is the more plausible response than act utilitarianism for the given situation.

In order for an action to be right in act utilitarianism, one must maximize the pleasures and pain as well as happiness of self and others. While in rule utilitarianism, an act is right if and only if it conforms to a set of rules and everyone would maximize the overall utility.

Utilitarianism: “The idea that an action is right, as long as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct (Oxford Dictionaries).” This theory was thought up as far back as the 17th century, but didn’t become well known until late into the 18th century when Jeremy Bentham a legal and social reformer gave a powerful presentation of the idea. “Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains (Jeremey Bentham).” Deontology: “An ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether

All human beings behave in the same particular way. The two things that we constantly experience in our lives are pleasure and pain. We are always trying to find pleasure while trying to avoid pain. We seek pleasure and avoid pain because pleasure produces happiness and pain tends to produce sorrow and anger. An action would be considered right if that action created happiness and an action would be wrong if that action promoted the opposite of happiness (sorrow, anger, etc.). When we try to evaluate the rightness or wrongness of an action we have to contemplate the consequences of other people involved and not just of our own. Moral actions should result in maximizing happiness because it’s the right thing to do not only for yourself but for others as well. The utilitarianism approach states the we should always try to produce the greatest amount of happiness for the largest amount of people over the longest amount of time. Happiness is something that we always struggle to maintain constant in our lives because we regularly find ourselves in problematic situations. When we are in these controversial circumstances we may not incessantly do the right thing because we simply don’t know what the right thing to do is. How we deal with certain issues defines whether we acquire happiness or not.

“Utilitarianism is the view that the supreme principle of morality is to act so as to produce as much happiness as possible, each person counting equally” (Mill, 114). By ‘happiness’, this includes anything that is pleasurable and free of pain. Simply put, utilitarianism is the theory that an action is right, as long as it produces the greatest good for the most number of people (Peetush). The central point to this theory is that one must consider every consequence before taking any action. There are two classical forms of utilitarianism; rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism. “Rule utilitarianism is the idea that an act is right if and only if it is required by a rule that is itself a member of a set of rules whose acceptance would

Act and Rule utilitarianism deals with what people want to follow whether it be by doing the morally right thing by following the rules or not. For Act utilitarianism a person's action is morally right if and only if it creates as much happiness than the other possible actions that could’ve taken place. To put it in simpler terms; you would be doing the morally right thing whether there are rules or not. The overall goal of utilitarianism is to better humanity by making solid moral choices. For example, if you were going to go by the AU way of thinking then let’s say we are in a setting where there is a judge and he’s in a trial where a convict had committed murder.

The theory of Act Utilitarianism is a part of consequentialism where presence is more evident of pleasure, and no pain because due to the most amount of utility, or happiness, for the greater amount of people. The actions are compared to how much utility they provide for the greater good. Act Utilitarianism would morally require me to save the five kindergarteners having a tea party on the train tracks because by saving the five children over the two rail workers, you are letting more people live and more families would be impacted by flipping the switch to Branch B. The utility produced by saving the five children would impact them, their friends, and their immediate, as well as distant family, which leads to giving more utility to the greater good of the people involved. The happiness produced by saving the two rail workers would not be numerically similar to if I were to save the five kindergarteners. The utility produced from saving the five kindergarteners would completely outweigh the amount of utility

Utilitarians believe that whether an act is right or wrong depends only on the consequences it produces. An act that results in at least as much pleasure or well being as other alternative acts is right, and vice versa. In other words, any act that does not maximize pleasure is morally wrong. Even though utilitarian ethics often clashes with conventional norms, the conflict has no direct moral relevance to the action.

Act utilitarianism works were the action of a person is considered right if the consequence in the end helps the most people. That means no matter what action the person performs if it helps the most people it will be the correct choice to make. A good example of this is that if harming your friend will save the lives of five other people than it the correct choice to make. It is part of the idea of utilitarianism thus is part of the idea of

Being stuck on the mountain surrounded by more than 80 taliban that want to kill you. Then having three goat herders come out of nowhere. So now I stuck in a country where i am seen as the white devil and more than half of the people of this country are trying to kill me. While I am on the ground seeing that my group is out number, and in the corner of my eye i see the goat herder getting closer and closer. Then with noticing they were right in front of us, as soon i was about to talk they started screaming and running back. Running down the hill taking the them down, we noticed one of them dropped a radio. A freaking radio that might be used to contact the people who are trying to kill us. Now I have the deciding vote to let them go or kill them cold blooded to save our own lives.

Utilitarianism is a moral theory that has long been the subject of philosophical debate. This theory, when practiced, appears to set a very basic guideline to follow when one is faced with a moral dilemma. Fundamental Utilitarianism states that when a moral dilemma arises, one should take action that causes favorable results or reduces less favorable results. If these less favorable results, or pain, occur from this action, it can be justified if it is produced to prevent more pain or produce happiness. Stating the Utilitarian view can summarize these basic principles: "the greatest good for the greatest number". Utilitarians are to believe that if they follow this philosophy, that no matter what action they take, it

According to Sharp et al., 2011, the utilitarian approach argues that, “acts are not judged to be morally right or wrong in of themselves, but rather by the results that they cause.” Therefore, the right action according to utilitarianism is the one that produces the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of people over suffering.

Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. The greatest happiness principle conducts “the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent’s own happiness but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectators”. The golden rule “treat others as you wanted to be treated” applies to this principle, and it’s a good example of utilitarian morality, along with the quotation “to love your neighbor as yourself”. For example; if a person has fallen down and injured themselves do you think about helping them? Or do you just ignore them? The greatest happiness principle tells us to not be selfish and for our own happiness but to do what is right for

1. Utilitarians believe that “one should so act as to promote the greatest happiness (pleasure) of the greatest number of people” (Angeles 326). However, within the utilitarian community there are major splits in how we are to determine which action brings us the greatest amounts of pleasure. Today I will be focusing on two ways to determine which actions bring the greatest amount of pleasure to a situation: act and rule utilitarianism. I will define both act and rule utilitarianism, give a situation where both can be applied, and respond to an objection of utilitarianism. I will also be discussing why I believe act utilitarianism helps more people than rule utilitarianism, in turn, becoming ‘superior’ to rule utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is a widely known and accepted form of consequentialism. Like the ideals of consequentialism, Utilitarian’s believe that actions are either morally right or wrong, based on what generates the greatest amount of Utility. More simply it comes down to whether the intended action does the greatest amount of good/happiness for the largest amount of people. Utilitarianism assesses the outcome of all situations using either the measurements of happiness or pleasure over that of dissatisfaction or pain. Utilitarianism can be broken into two subsets; Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. The ideals behind act utilitarianism are that whenever a decision is to be made on what action to take, the action that is chosen should maximise