Act Utilitarianism Philosophy

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.

Utilitarianism, in the contrary, is based on the principle of utility or usefulness. Utility is what encourages an agent to act in a particular way (Tuckett, 1998). Utility can be explained as maximizing the good like pleasure and happiness and minimizing the bad like pain and evil, all leading to the greater good for all parties involved. It weights the consequences of the actions equally between the ones involved, and the ethical solution would be to follow the greater good for most if not all the parties involved.

This may be considered a more refined version of Act Utilitarianism as it addresses some shortcoming of the earlier ethical theory by universalizing the situation. In this regard, rather than base the ethics of the situation on whether it will result in beneficence for the greatest number of people, it instead bases its ethics on the gain in happiness or loss if everyone worldwide carried out the action that is being judged. As applied to the subject issue, Rule Utilitarianism would ask, “If every corporation/company/organization paid subjected their workers to poor working conditions and poor, unfair wages, would it result in a net loss or gain of happiness?”

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.

Utilitarianism is the theory that one ought to maximize the happiness and minimize the unhappiness of as many people as possible. (Rosenstand p. G-6) Though, act and rule utilitarianism both aim in doing this, the main difference between the two, the act utilitarian focuses on the single act, while the rule utilitarian focuses not only on the single act, but how the current act will effect similar and repeated acts in the future.

“As mentioned above, act utilitarianism uses pleasure minus pain to determine the amount of pleasure that will come from a certain action. If an action creates more pleasure than pain, then that action is considered to promote happiness” (Mill pg.). Act utilitarianism comes from the philosopher, John Stuart Mill. This theory of act utilitarianism derives from the greatest happiness principle. Actions that promote happiness is another

In this essay, I will argue that classical act utilitarianism can meet the injustice objection, but ultimately is weakened by the same argument. Classical Act utilitarianism is a branch of consequentialism, a type of ethical theory which dictates that the rightness or wrongness of an action stems purely from the consequences of that action. In particular, classical act utilitarianism places ‘utility’, namely pleasure as the sole intrinsic good, and states that each action should be considered individually to decide which one results in the greatest aggregate utility. One of the main objections towards act utilitarianism is that of injustice. The basic argument is that since utilitarians focus on the net utility created by an action,

Act utilitarianism has two different versions. One versions says that an act is right if and only if its actual consequences would contain at least as much utility as of those of any other act open to the agent. Another version claims that an act is right if and only its expected utility is at least as great as that of any

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, first of all, is an ethical theory that focuses on creating more good or happiness over bad. Effects of an action must be taken into account for everyone. Actions that directly cause the most goodness are morally right. For these reasons, everyone is considered to judge what will produce the most happiness overall. Also, every situation needs to be looked at as completely new and unique.

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

For example, there is a hunter who wonders if it is morally acceptable to kill a deer. Act Utilitarianism analyzes the effects of this one action to decide if it is moral by assigning a value to the amount of pleasure and pain each individual involved will experience. In this case the hunter and his family will experience the pleasure of having food from eating the deer, many of the neighbors of the hunter will experience pleasure by having the deer off their property, and the deer’s family will experience the pain of the loss of a family member. If the outcome is that the net value of pleasure is greater than the pain caused by the killing of the deer, it is morally right for the hunter to kill it.

Act-utilitarianism would be the approach to ethics, where the good is whatever the results in the greatest amount of utility or benefit, or satisfaction in the interest, of the greatest number of people related to the action being considered, for that particular occasion/or act. This is a on-time only consideration, and thus is why its called 'act', the one-act; act-utilitarianism.

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

2. To begin, I will be defining both act and rule utilitarianism. In act utilitarianism, you determine the morality of an act by measuring the pleasures and pains for a specific situation Angeles 326). Act utilitarians take into consideration only those affected in the specific situation. However, rule utilitarianism determines the morality of an act “according to the good or bad consequences that ensue from following a general moral rule of conduct…” (Angeles 326). Good examples of those general moral rules are phrases like, never steal or never tell a lie. In any situation, people can use either act or rule utilitarianism to determine the correct course of action.