Utilitarianism And Hedonism

The social and ethical movement of utilitarianism is founded on the principle of utility with the understanding that actions are right when they promote happiness and wrong when they promote the opposite (B. Porter 146). With this paper I will answer the following question; how is the greatest happiness principle supposed to be useful in determining what I ought to do? When we dissect the greatest happiness principle we can come to the conclusion that the basis of this belief is with morality. Being moral is absolute, whether it is good or bad. Moreover, Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy, endorses a view that pleasure and pain are the foundation of morality (T. Mulgan 10). Either way there is an outcome, stimulating our sensory receptors with accomplishment, sense of worth, value, failure or guilt. It is ones search for happiness that is ever so indefinable, being the ever elusive feeling of content. Whether through hedonism, intuitive objections or consequentialism, the greatest happiness principle is useful in determining what I ought to do.
First let’s examine hedonism. According to Professor Mulgan it is known that “utilitarians were all, in different ways, hedonists (61). Furthermore,with the claim that well-being is pleasure, the question can be asked; what is pleasure? Is pleasure always good? (T. Mulgan …show more content…
Mulgan 132). It is not good enough to produce good outcomes; you must capitalize on them (134). Announcing to a hostage taker that if they don’t release everyone in five minutes, you will storm the building, would more than likely turn out much worse than not saying anything and using the element of darkness with surprise to then storm the building. The consequence of your actions would maximize the pleasurable ending. So, what ought I do? What constitutes the rightness or wrongness of one’s choices? (P. Tully