The Pros And Cons Of Utilitarianism

Within the ethical branch of philosophy there are several theories on how one should leave their life but, most do not provide a sufficient answer, but there is one theory that has provided an answer; and that is Utilitarianism a subset of consequentialism. This theory is defined by its core idea of maximizing overall happiness of everyone, and has been used to shape some of the fundamental ideas governments use to govern their various countries; this is due to Utilitarianism providing a logical way of thinking upon moral issues, but like most things, Utilitarianism does have some drawbacks to it, such drawbacks would include; justifications for certain actions like murder, or torture. Even with these draw backs, I personally believe in Utilitarianism, …show more content…
For example, people generally have a sense of justice or morality, which all have a place within the spectrum of human emotions, and are considered to be good characteristics to possess. Often people use their morals or this sense of justice to guide themselves through life and help them make everyday decisions, but to the practitioners of Utilitarianism emotions are seen as an irrational way to make decisions; this is due to the biased and illogical nature that emotions bring to decision making; along with the fact that emotional decision making tends to decisions that do not benefit the greater good, and promote personal happiness. An example of this emotional line of thinking is a variation of the trolley case, in which to stop a trolley someone can push a person in the way of the trolley to stop and save everyone else in the process. In the case of the emotional decision maker they would shy away from tossing a person in front of the trolley, because they would find it morally wrong and consider it to be murder; even though they would be doing it for the greater good of saving everyone on the tracks, at the expense of sacrificing a single person. On the flip side of that coin someone who is a pure practitioner of Utilitarianism would have no qualms with tossing that person in front of the trolley, if it …show more content…
For example, once again there is the trolley case, but in this instance it is the original in which a runaway train is hurtling down the tracks and is about to hit multiple people, but someone can divert the train onto a separate track where another person is and kill them instead of the others; in this situation someone must make a decision on whether or not to kill one person to save several other people. In this situation the utilitarian, along with most people, would kill the one person to save the others because in the end that option makes the most logical sense because it would increase the overall happiness of the population. On the flipside of the utilitarian’s decision to divert the train, there is the non-utilitarian’s which in most cases is still the same as the utilitarian’s, but the difference come in with the emotions that the non-utilitarian brings to the equation. The emotions that course through