The Principle Of Utility Explicit That Actions Or Behaviors Are Right

No form of Utilitarianism addresses the concerns raised about the intrinsic value and human life, it is a simple, easily exploited mask of morality. While the claims are to maximize happiness, with the reasons being that it wants to increase the aggregate happiness in general, the theory promotes with the inverse to eliminate as much unhappiness as possible. Rather than maximizing the good for all involved, one could easily just attempt to a limit the amount of people affected by whatever deed is done, especially if the deed would be considered bad if people knew about it. By keeping the action to a select

Let’s start by gaining an understanding of what utilitarianism means. The definition given to us earlier in our textbook, Exploring Ethics, in the article, Strengths and Weaknesses of Utilitarianism, it defines act utilities as an act that, “is right if and only if it results in as much good as any available alternative”. This goes back to the tedious task of trying to analyze countless number of alternatives and figure out which one brings about the most

30). Mill, in contrast to Bentham, distinguished differences in the quality of pleasures that made some intrinsically preferable to others independently of the intensity and duration. Other philosophers in the Utilitarian tradition have identified certain wholly non-hedonistic values without giving up on their Utilitarian credentials. Even in restraining the recognition of intrinsic value and disvalue to joy and sadness, other philosophers have argued that those feelings cannot sufficiently be further categorized in terms of pleasure and pain and have thus preferred to defend the theory concerning maximizing happiness and reducing pain and sadness. It is vital to note that even for the hedonistic utilitarians, enjoyment and suffering are not thought of in solely sensual terms; happiness and suffering for them can be components of experiences of all sorts. Their argument is that, if an experience is not enjoyable or painful, then it is a subject of indifference and has no intrinsic

Hedonism and the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare are typically seen as archrivals in the contest over identifying what makes one’s life better. It is surprising, then, that the most plausible form of hedonism is desire satisfactionism. The hedonism theory focuses on pleasure/happiness while the desire-satisfaction theory elucidates the relevance of fulfilling our desires. Pleasure, in some points of view is the subjective satisfaction of desire. I will explain the similarities and the differences between the desire-satisfaction theory of value and hedonism. I will also discuss the most successful theory and defend my argument by explaining how the theory

Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory. It concerns how to evaluate a large range of things that involve choices communities or groups face. These choices include policies, laws, human’s rights, moral codes,

Utilitarianism is a practical doctrine that is widely accepted in modern society’s economics, politic, and ethics. Utilitarian is driven by the pursuit of happiness. For a utilitarian, everything that will be helpful in the pursuit is considered good. In utilitarianism, an action is good or evil based on its consequences on the happiness of an individual and the happiness of the community. Similar to other doctrine, utilitarianism is not without a flaw. Bernard Williams, in his paper Utilitarianism and Integrity, voices his primary concern in regard to utilitarianism by providing two concrete examples to demonstrate how utilitarianism is only concerned about the consequences of the action and not about the means used to get there. Williams argues that utilitarianism fails to acknowledge the integrity of a person because the ultimate goal of utilitarianism is to produce the greatest happiness overall.

In Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill gives an account for the reasons one must abide by the principles of Utilitarianism. Also referred to as the Greatest-happiness Principle, this doctrine promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. More specifically, Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, holding that the right act is that which yields the greatest net utility, or "the total amount of pleasure minus the total amount of pain", for all individuals affected by said act (Joyce, lecture notes from 03/30).

happiness for the greatest number, and if it produces unhappiness. Pojman defines act utilitarianism as

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

Since its creation during the time of the classic Greek philosophers, the theory of utilitarianism has changed and developed. Various criticisms have been pointed out and expanded upon that expose key flaws in the theory’s design. One criticism that is made is that utilitarianism ignores justice. Critics claim that utilitarian minds would choose to take extreme, and potentially unlawful, action to ensure their quota of reaching the “maximum happiness” of the whole is reached. For example, if an individual decided that killing one person would bring happiness to a large group of people then the act would be considered moral. This, however, is not the case. In no instance is killing considered a “moral” action, but rather the exact opposite. Another criticism that is made is that people assign different values to various mental and physical

"They (meaning Utilitarians) argued that actions and social policies should be judged right or wrong exclusively according to whether they cause happiness or misery....." (Rachels, 2010, 308)

The most common use of utilitarianism is by way of consequentialist moral theory. Consequentialists believe that an act’s rightness and wrongness depends solely on its consequences and nothing else. An act is right when the algebraic sum of total utility unit

Utilitarianism is reasonable to apply in our life because of a variety of limitation. For example, if the student wants a good grade, studying hard will be the best choice. The reason is that the time is limited, if the student spends much time on playing, he will not have enough time to study; thus, he will not achieve his goal that getting a good grade. One more example, a robber is robbing the bank, and there are five hostages in the bank. You are a policeman and need to decide that if you insist catching the robber, these hostages will lose their life; otherwise, if you release the robber, these hostages will survive.

“Utilitarianism is the concept that the moral worth of an action is determined exclusively by its contribution to overall utility, that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people.”

Utilitarianism, at first, appears to be a rather uncontroversial ethical theory in that it bases its plausibility on its basic principle of maximizing human happiness. Even so, it proves to be rather problematic in many of its aspects as soon as one discerns how this ethical account ascribes moral value to actions. Particularly, one worrying issue for utilitarianism, which I will be delving into, deals with is its demands on the way in which agents are required to act and lead their lives in order for them to be considered moral and for their lives to be considered good. The challenges surrounding the stringent requirements of utilitarianism and its tendency to overburden moral agents with these requirements is pointed out by Bernard Williams in his 1973 essay “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Williams’ worry boils down to this: if utilitarianism judges the morality of actions solely on the basis of whether they maximize happiness (or not), then it seems that agents who are not at every moment engaged in acts that are increasing the overall goodness in the world are either both directly and indirectly responsible for others’ suffering that is caused or results of their actions or inaction. This commitment utilitarianism ties us to is what Williams refers to as