While observing Bernard Williams experiment about Jim, we are faced with a question of what should Jim do regarding the offer he was presented with? The offer being, Jim has the “privilege” of killing one of the twenty conquered Indians and freeing the rest or her can do nothing and the captain kills them all. In comparing J.S Mills’ philosophical theory utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant’s philosophical theory deontology, we will pay special attention how the two derive from different aspects of an ethical approach and how the outcome can sometimes influence the decisions.
According to Mills’ theory if utilitarianism, his recommendation to Jim would have been to kill the one Indian or “minimize unhappiness” (Edwards 125), in order to ensure the safety of the nineteen remaining Indians or “maximize happiness” (Edwards 125). Jim would have concluded this decision by considering “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”(Mill 2004). When considering who would all be happy if Jim had …show more content…
Mill suggests happiness is the driving force of the actions we as humans take daily. That can be proven to be true in many occasions such as someone taking a loved one off of life support after five years. They ultimate happiness for the family in distress would be that their relative gains mobility and cognitive ability, however the decision that has to be made it not driven at all by the happiness of the agent in this situation. Kant’s deontological theory is centralized around actions being acted only out of obligation for the universal duty. We saw in the example with Jim and the Indians, there is not universal duty in killing one human being to save another. However, if we were considering the “maxim” to which we decide our decision then it would be to kill that one individual to save the other
According to Mills’ theory if utilitarianism, his recommendation to Jim would have been to kill the one Indian or “minimize unhappiness” (Edwards 125), in order to ensure the safety of the nineteen remaining Indians or “maximize happiness” (Edwards 125). Jim would have concluded this decision by considering “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”(Mill 2004). When considering who would all be happy if Jim had …show more content…
Mill suggests happiness is the driving force of the actions we as humans take daily. That can be proven to be true in many occasions such as someone taking a loved one off of life support after five years. They ultimate happiness for the family in distress would be that their relative gains mobility and cognitive ability, however the decision that has to be made it not driven at all by the happiness of the agent in this situation. Kant’s deontological theory is centralized around actions being acted only out of obligation for the universal duty. We saw in the example with Jim and the Indians, there is not universal duty in killing one human being to save another. However, if we were considering the “maxim” to which we decide our decision then it would be to kill that one individual to save the other