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Utilitarianism: One Of The Most Ethical Theories

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Taylor Stewart
First Paper
Philosophy
15 October, 2014
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is well known compared to most ethical theories because it is one of the most effective theories. This theory focuses on acts of individuals and who the act is benefiting. Utilitarians try and base their actions on happiness and who they are bringing the happiness too. Their goal is benefit as many people as possible. Utilitarians think morality is based on making life better by adding the good and subtracting the bad. Utilitarianism is the considered one of the best ethical theories because it works hard on making the best suited decision for any situation. The term Utilitarianism was first called Hedonistic Ethical Theory but was later changed by Jeremy …show more content…

Both agree that the outcome on an action should be overall happiness but disagree on how to reach that goal. Act Utilitarianism says that when doing an action, the person must choose what will bring the best result. “Should be applied on a case by case basis”, (Nathanson, para. 24). Act is seen as the main theory of utilitarianism because it is simple and it bases if a person is moral or not based on their actions. Stealing, cheating, murder and lying are all considered immoral acts and should not be done. People also have an easier time following along with act utilitarianism because the rules are very similar to those in the Bible where lying, cheating, killing, etc. are all considered immoral. Act utilitarianism disagrees with rule utilitarianism because they do not believe an action is right or wrong as a whole, but instead they look into why the action may have been done in the first place. Rule utilitarianism names an act as right or wrong without knowing the background information. Many people like rule utilitarianism seeing that it has rules making it easier to follow and determine what is considered moral or not. It gives them a safety net to help decide what to do. Both act and rule should give the same result in the end, one is just more complex with rules while the other says “just do …show more content…

She talks about how a person will base an action as right or wrong depending on what the consequences are. She brings up how killing someone is wrong because the consequences are so severe for a crime like murder. However, utilitarians would argue that not only is killing someone wrong because of the consequences, but also because of the pain it brings. It brings pain to the victim and all the relatives of the victim as well. Driver gives an excellent example on how egoism is bad because even though the person is looking to promote their own happiness, they could be hurting others to do so. Imagine a murderer who gets a thrill from killing. Well yes he is happy, but how is that helping anyone else. That is why rule utilitarianism is very important in some cases. It looks deeper into the situation to investigate why this happened and can then name it as immoral. “Immoral actions are those actions that cause bad outcomes and morally good actions are those that cause good outcomes”, (Driver,

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