At the end, Smart tries to persuade the audience that restricted utilitarianism fall short to using common sense. Smart’s main ache is the rules that follow with restricted utilitarian. Smart’s vital debate cumulates in the British road system, in which the drivers drive on the opposite side of the. We in America drive on the right side and the British drive on the left side. Smart questions why the rule only has one answer; the answer being just…
The most recent Presidential election in the United States recently came to a wrap, widely being considered one of the most ridiculous elections of all time. When it was announced that the two Presidential finalists were Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, people all around the world were shocked. With Donald Trump having no experience in politics, and Hillary Clinton previously having been in a political position, but landing herself in hot water for deleting thousands of emails, it seemed that America was almost certainly doomed. With the controversial nature of the candidates, many America citizens decided to remove themselves from the equation completely by not voting at all. If I was an American citizen, I would have done the same thing.…
4. How might utilitarianism be used to resolve dilemma 4 (pg. 132 of Jones)? Do you agree with this resolution? Why or why not?…
That’s what I mean by not caring about moral principles or beliefs. On the other hand, rule utilitarianism does bring more rules and principles into perspective as well as rules and laws. If what you’re going to do affects or interferes with another rule, then rule utilitarianism tells you that you should not do that. Simply because of that is why I agree and a supporter of rule…
Utilitarianism is a normative philosophy of ethics that has been around since the late eighteenth century. It earliest proponents were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The general idea of utilitarianism is that there is no morality measurement except results. So, when one is deciding how to act, the only thing that matters is what the results of the actions are. Utilitarianism says that the actions that cause the most happiness and the least amount of unhappiness or pain are the moral acts.…
The problem with rule utilitarianism is that it is too rigid and unless it reverts to act utilitarianism, there are no exceptions to the rules. Consider the scenario of lying to save a life, with rule utilitarianism telling the truth would be the ethical option unless there are exceptions to the rules, in which case utility would be determined more on a case to case basis as in act utilitarianism. This scenario also brings up the question of which rules are the most important and supersede others; is it more ethical to tell the truth and have someone die as a consequence or to lie and save a…
There are six evaluative principles that are used to evaluate moral theories. They are Consistency, Applicability, Publicity, Internal Support, External Support, and Explanatory Power. I am going to evaluate Divine Command Theory, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Virtue Ethics using these six evaluative principles. First is Divine Command Theory (DCT). For Consistency, DCT is consistent because God either commands an act to be either right, wrong, or it is permissible if God has not claimed if it is right or wrong.…
I found it interesting that you believe that rule utilitarianism is preferred. The book states, “… rule utilitarianism tells us what kinds of actions are morally right, regardless of the specific situation” (130). I believe that act utilitarianism is more preferable although I see your point about rule utilitarianism. For instance, I believe that killing is wrong; some may say abortion is okay if the woman was raped. I agree that a form of rule utilitarianism is acceptable because it is still morally wrong to me, and should not be done even if the woman was raped.…
Moral Theory Of Utilitarianism. The moral theory of Utilitarianism is defined as to be that an action is only good only if it brings happiness to others. There are three sub principles that define the theory of Utilitarianism, Principle one talks about how consequences are all that matter in a situation or an action, that the final outcome/ results are those that matter. The second principle states that happiness is the only thing that matters and that we seek for pleasure more often and we hate to have pain.…
There are no rules that will work for every circumstance, and to strictly abide by said rules can often lead to less utility than that which would have been gained by making the “morally incorrect” choice. Rule utilitarianism is less about ensuring the most utility for the most numbers and more about convincing yourself that you made the morally right choice simply because you followed all of the rules and therefore could not have done any better. Act utilitarian proves that this is inherently wrong. Not every situation is the same and therefore cannot be treated the same. Instead of following a set of oversimplified rules, act utilitarianism examines a specific situation so that the morally correct choice is the one catered to that circumstance.…
The search for the greatest way to reduce suffering and increase happiness has been a search that has confused and inspired philosophers all the way down to Aristotle and beyond. Each proposed a system that supposedly if implemented would create a utopia like world. One such implementation is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an efficient way that if implemented would accomplish its goal. However, it is brutal, enable the act of racism, and does not take into account the feelings of minorities.…
The three ethical theories were made by three famous philosophers Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant. These three philosophers are arguably the most famous philosophers in the branch of normative ethics. Normative ethics deals with the moral standards that regulate our actions and categorize them as whether they’re right or wrong. The theories of ethics consist of Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, Mill's Utilitarianism, and Kant's Deontological Ethics. I believe that Aristotle’s theory is closer to the truth than the others.…
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.…
Ethical Framework Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that I feel aligned to personally. Utilitarianism states that the ethical choice is the one that provides the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, even if that choice isn’t the best for everyone. Much of our politics are conducted using this approach, making decisions and laws that increase the amount of good while also reducing the amount of harm that is done. I believe this to be the most practical approach to most situations, especially when it comes to government. This is because it is virtually impossible to meet the needs or wants of every single person, so doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people is ultimately what is best for the community.…
Specifically, rule utilitarianism brings about the idea that one should act according to a set of rules that would lead to the most optimal consequences and is deemed by a majority to be acceptable. In contrary, Kant believed that one’s actions should be based on the purity of the will and not based on consequences at…