Act Consequentialism: The Most Plausible Moral Theory

Many people have justifications for why they do certain things. Some justifications are based off of happiness, desires, god or morals. People who use happiness and desires as their justification use theories of the good. While those who use god and morals use theories of morality. Some theories that fall into the theories of morality are the divine command theory, consequentialism, and social contract theory. I will argue that act consequentialism is the most plausible moral theory because it better summarizes my thought process when making a decision.
Act consequentialism is interchangeably used with classical act utilitarianism. This theory states that you ought to do whatever will produce the best (or least bad) overall consequences. Some phrases an act consequentialist would use is “The greatest good for the greatest number” or “The ends justify the means”. These phrases just emphasize that as long as the end results maximize the best consequences, then you should do what requires you to get those results. There are three principles that make up classical act utilitarianism. They are principle of hedonism, principle of consequentialism, and principle of equality. The principle of hedonism is pleasure or enjoyment is the only thing that is valuable …show more content…
With the divine command theory, it makes someone justify an extremely horrific act by claiming God authorized us to do so. This is explained by the divine perfection argument, which is against the divine command theory. If the divine command theory is true, then a morally perfect God could have created a flawless morality that required us to rape little children. But a morally perfect God could not have issued such commands, anyone who did would be morally imperfect. Therefore, the divine command theory is