In the branch of normative ethics, a person discerns what is right or wrong behavior. There are several theories about what is right or wrong conduct, but two of the most popular ideas is Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Both set up strict methods of deciding how a person would know what the right thing to do in a situation would be. On one hand, utilitarianism claims that you can use intuition to discern what the greatest good for the greatest number of people is. On the other side, Kantianism claims that you can use reasoning and logic to discern moral obligations and rules. Each theory tries to help people figure out what actions are morally right and which ones are wrong.
There are two types of utilitarianism- extreme and restricted. According to extreme utilitarianism, when it comes to a moral problem, a person’s intentions are irrelevant. Rather than looking at the rightness or wrongness of someone’s actions, extreme utilitarianism looks at the consequences of an action. Moral rules are more like “rules of thumb”. Moral rules should be kept most of the time. However, they can be broken, if and only if, a situation arises where it would be better to break the moral code rather than keep …show more content…
Since Smart primarily used extreme utilitarianism in his argument, that is the type of utilitarianism that will be used in this scenario. I one of the most classical moral dilemma scenarios a person would ask if it would be wrong to steal food for their starving family. Since extreme utilitarianism say we should do what is best for the greatest amount of people, they would say yes a person should steal the food. It would be worse to let your family starve, than stealing food. On the other hand, a Kantian would decide that by stealing the food, you are saying it is okay for everyone to steal whenever they want food. Therefore, stealing is wrong to do in all
There are two types of utilitarianism- extreme and restricted. According to extreme utilitarianism, when it comes to a moral problem, a person’s intentions are irrelevant. Rather than looking at the rightness or wrongness of someone’s actions, extreme utilitarianism looks at the consequences of an action. Moral rules are more like “rules of thumb”. Moral rules should be kept most of the time. However, they can be broken, if and only if, a situation arises where it would be better to break the moral code rather than keep …show more content…
Since Smart primarily used extreme utilitarianism in his argument, that is the type of utilitarianism that will be used in this scenario. I one of the most classical moral dilemma scenarios a person would ask if it would be wrong to steal food for their starving family. Since extreme utilitarianism say we should do what is best for the greatest amount of people, they would say yes a person should steal the food. It would be worse to let your family starve, than stealing food. On the other hand, a Kantian would decide that by stealing the food, you are saying it is okay for everyone to steal whenever they want food. Therefore, stealing is wrong to do in all