The Application Of Jeremy Bentham's The Greatest Happiness Argument

Picture this, that it is dinner time with your family and they all want pizza but you want chinese. As a result it would give more people a pleasure to be getting pizza even though it may give you displeasure. Simply because would produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, therefore you get pizza for dinner. This is a simple application of Jeremy Bentham's the greatest happiness principle. Basically the greatest happiness principle is the idea that you should do actions that produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. This principle can even be applied to the community because individuals make up an community. Although it becomes simply trickier if you apply it to the baby Theresa argument. …show more content…
Also, as I stated before baby theresa could not feel pain and she does not have a brain. So she can’t comprehend what could happen. The only downside to this, is they would have to kill an infant. Not to mention, many people who heard about this case were not happy, of the idea of killing an infant. Additionally, in utilitarianism it's a principle to do no harm. So a huge question is "Can Theresa be harmed?" She cannot feel pain but death is harming someone. If she cannot feel pain, is baby Theresa happy? Utilitarianism believe that happiness is pleasure and vice versa. If baby Theresa could feel pleasure like tasting something yummy or a sense of accomplishment, should could would be happy. In addition, she could not feel anything. She has no senses or happiness/pain. Not only could she not feel pain or happiness, she could not have any desires. Branching off of happiness and pain, with utilitarianism life can be divided up into categories pain and pleasure. If baby Theresa could not feel or tell the difference in pain or pleasure is she actually living? One of the some requirements of life includes having feelings which she could …show more content…
So with baby Theresa parents, they were trying to do a good act with baby Theresa. Even though they knew that the child was going to die, they could act right by donating her organs. The reason this is deemed as good, is because many people will benefit from this act of kindness. The people who influenced by this is the babies and their families. In conclusion good actions have good consequences and bad actions have bad consequences so therefore donating baby dresses organs would have been a good action. We know this simply because of the satisfaction of other people because of this act, it would give them happiness. Generally speaking, in utilitarianism in life we seek only pleasure and the avoidance of