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Advantages And Disadvantages Of John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism

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Millions of people die each year due to Cancer and AIDS, if this could be prevented simply by trading 3,000 involuntary humans to aliens for tortuous and lethal medical experiments, would it be morally justifiable? Depending on the different ethical approaches, the answer to this may vary. John Stuart Mill, a utilitarian, believed that good comes from human pleasure and that an act should benefit the majority of society for it to be good. Immanuel Kant studied deontology and believed that good will is “good without qualification” (301)1. This approach meant that an act was only good if the motivation behind it was pure. Lastly, Aristotle believed in virtue ethics. This belief was that being virtuous was biological and that being virtuous was …show more content…
There are two different forms of utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism which creates general rules in society which are beneficial to society as a whole whereas act utilitarianism bases this off of every individual act. Basing a moral action on its consequences can have drawbacks. Since an exchange of 3,000 people for the cure of cancer and aids would be beneficial to a much greater number of people than the 3,000 who were exchanged it would be justifiable. However, according to Fundamentals of Philosophy, “John Stuart Mill argued strongly in his book On Liberty against any kind of infringement of the rights of minorities, and his basic argument was based on the claim that a society will be more peaceful and therefore happier if maximum liberty is extended to all members of society, and a more harmonious society will promote the general welfare and happiness” (293)2. Despite Mill’s efforts to deny such a claim, it is likely utilitarian’s would be in favor of the trade. This is because even if there was a rule system in place, ranking individual liberty as a top priority, it would likely be argued that because both deal with lives as well as being torturous to the individual, the logical option for a utilitarian would be to choose them over the 3,000 individual. …show more content…
David H. Stewart, Gene Blocker, and James M. Petrik, Fundamentals of Philosophy, (Pearson, 2013) 301
2. Stewart, Blocker, Petrick, Fundamentals of Philosophy, 293
3. Ibid., 304
4. Dr. Nathan Friend, Ethics Lecture
5. Stewart, Blocker, Petrick, Fundamentals of Philosophy, 279
6. Ibid., 286

Bibliography 2. Friend, Nathan, Dr. "Ethics Lecture." Video File. Accessed January 07, 2018.
3. Stewart, David, H. Gene Blocker, and James M. Petrik. Fundamentals of Philosophy. Boston: Pearson,

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