Difference Between Evil Vs Good Utilitarianism

In the course, Evil Versus Good I learned how to think outside the box and look at the big picture of elements in life. The topic that I felt was the most interesting to write about is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is “something moral, or good, when it produces the greatest of good for the greatest number of people” (What is Utilitarianism?). It is a theory of normative ethics that ask whether a specific action is good or bad, moral or immoral.
Utilitarianism answers the question with an economic analysis that focuses on human lives and says that those actions that make people happy are good. Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral theories also. Morals are separated into good and bad.
In utilitarianism, good …show more content…
A basic situation to utilitarianism is that it could require one to violate the standards of justice. For example, there is a judge in a small town, and an individual that committed a crime. As the judge, you know that if you sentence an innocent man to death, the town will be peaceful. If you set the man free, many individuals will erupt. People in the town will be very angry with that choice, due to the automatic mind set of pain. Utilitarianism seems to require punishing the innocent in certain circumstances, especially in the example stated above. There are thousands of cases in the United States that sentences innocent men/women to prison. It is wrong to punish an innocent person, because it violates his rights. For the utilitarian’s though, all that matters are the gain of happiness to them. …show more content…
Through my course I have learned to form some opinions about ethical systems. In particular, I found that utilitarianism is not a very strong system. The major issue with it being that it is conditional, and that it’s impossible to apply. There is some good to utilitarism, but I am going to get into the negatives now. The first issue with utilitarism is that it is conditional. It is a system that says, “seek to maximize utility.” Many different thinkers have put different answers to what utility really is. This quote makes utilitarianism a conditional system, it only applies as long as the individual agrees with the identifying activity. This is a major concern, because an ethical system should not be an assumption, that happiness is the correct thing to attempt to maximize. The second issue, is that utilitarians cannot be applied too two reasons. The reasoning is because utilitarianism attempts to maximize something we must have a way to quantify, or at least compare two different things. Jeremy Bentham like I spoke about before believes happiness is calculus, based on seven attributes of happiness or pain. Logically it is impossible to compare the intensity of happiness to pain