Examples Of Extreme Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is defined as the action taken that will maximize utility, or bring the most happiness to the people involved. There are two kinds of utilitarianism, act and rule. I shall refer to act as extreme and rule as restricted. In the following paper I will define extreme and restricted utilitarianism separately and then demonstrate how Smart establishes a difference between the two in the Desert Island Promise case and how Smart chooses extreme utilitarianism and what he ought to do in the situation and not what he thinks he should do.

First, extreme utilitarianism is defined as the action token that maximizes utility. In other words, your action, the optimific action, should produce the most utility possible in the situation. With …show more content…
The rule in this case to follow is to keep promises. Following the rule and keeping the promise in this instance is believed to maximize utility. You would be guilt free and you would make the jockey club, and your late friend, happy with the donation. The faith in promise keeping is not altered and you can remain a truthful person. When faced with a decision and there is limited time to think out the choices and a rule is in place that is fundamental to keep, it is obvious that you would follow the rule. But this is opposed by the extreme utilitarian and Smart gives an explanation of why restricted is …show more content…
Following the rule in this case, Smart believes, is not the best approach. He decides to break the promise and donate to the hospital believing that it is the better decision. Smart explains that following a rule that would produce less than maximum utility is irrational. Why not choose a better option and break the rule? In the Desert Island case, breaking the promise and donating to the hospital is believed to produce maximum utility, not keeping the promise. We can analyze the change in utility of giving to the hospital. You may feel guilty that you decided to disobey your friends wish, but you also feel pride that you donated to the hospital and made many people happy. Maybe the jockey club misses out on some cash and they can't buy what they want for an event but on the plus side, they do not know you broke the promise. Since again nobody knows that you broke the promise, the faith in promise keeping remains. When you can produce an action that will provide more utility than following a rule would, then it is acceptable to break the rule. Donating to the hospital would be the optimific action according to Smart and he would break the