An Exploration of Utilitarianism
When looking at our nation as it is today, it seems almost impossible that there was a time at which we were without a state. The state plays a more active role in our lives today than ever before. All throughout time, many philosophers, as well as everyday people, evaluate whether or not a state is justified, and if it is, who should rule. While most would agree that the state is justified, there are many different ideas as to how much power the state should have, and who should be able to rule. In this paper, I will focus on the Utilitarian argument for the state, a popular objection to Utilitarianism, and my own response as to why this objection is valid.
Utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism formulated …show more content…
I will be exploring the ideals of the Trolley Case as an objection to utilitarianism. The Trolley Case is a theoretical ethical dilemma which is often presented to people to gauge their moral intuitions. The Trolley case has many different variations, but the one I will be focusing on is the transplant variation of the case, created by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1976. The transplant dilemma states that, “David is a great transplant surgeon. Five of his patients need new parts…heart…liver, stomach, spleen, and spinal cord—but all are of the same, relatively rare, blood type. By chance, David learns of a healthy specimen with that very blood-type. David can take the healthy specimen’s parts, killing him, and install them in his patients, saving them. Or he can refrain from taking the healthy specimen’s parts, letting his patients die” (Thomson). A utilitarian response to this dilemma would be to kill the healthy patient and save the five transplants patients because it is the option that will raise the group’s collective amount of happiness. Five people’s lives are improved while only one is harmed. This logic, however, draws the objection that while it would raise the overall happiness yield among the transplant patients, it would not excuse the terrible injustice that is killing the healthy patient. What I believe the strongest objection to utilitarianism is would be the …show more content…
This first concept, killing vs. letting die, is an important distinction to make when looking at ethics. A utilitarian would hold that there is no difference between killing and letting die because it would yield the same happiness level for each action. In contrast, many others would argue that the act of killing someone, even if it were to save five others, is unjust because it takes an extra effort to initiate the killing whereas letting die is a passive action. This viewpoint is often referred to as the deontologist’s viewpoint. Deontologists would argue that there are certain rules that ought not be broken, even if they were to raise the overall happiness or pleasure of a community. Killing the healthy patient in this transplant case would be an example of a rule that ought not be broken, because most people generally believe that killing an innocent person is intuitively wrong. Although different deontologists make different distinctions on what laws ought not be broken, the general consensus is that not all actions that raise utility level should be
When looking at our nation as it is today, it seems almost impossible that there was a time at which we were without a state. The state plays a more active role in our lives today than ever before. All throughout time, many philosophers, as well as everyday people, evaluate whether or not a state is justified, and if it is, who should rule. While most would agree that the state is justified, there are many different ideas as to how much power the state should have, and who should be able to rule. In this paper, I will focus on the Utilitarian argument for the state, a popular objection to Utilitarianism, and my own response as to why this objection is valid.
Utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism formulated …show more content…
I will be exploring the ideals of the Trolley Case as an objection to utilitarianism. The Trolley Case is a theoretical ethical dilemma which is often presented to people to gauge their moral intuitions. The Trolley case has many different variations, but the one I will be focusing on is the transplant variation of the case, created by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1976. The transplant dilemma states that, “David is a great transplant surgeon. Five of his patients need new parts…heart…liver, stomach, spleen, and spinal cord—but all are of the same, relatively rare, blood type. By chance, David learns of a healthy specimen with that very blood-type. David can take the healthy specimen’s parts, killing him, and install them in his patients, saving them. Or he can refrain from taking the healthy specimen’s parts, letting his patients die” (Thomson). A utilitarian response to this dilemma would be to kill the healthy patient and save the five transplants patients because it is the option that will raise the group’s collective amount of happiness. Five people’s lives are improved while only one is harmed. This logic, however, draws the objection that while it would raise the overall happiness yield among the transplant patients, it would not excuse the terrible injustice that is killing the healthy patient. What I believe the strongest objection to utilitarianism is would be the …show more content…
This first concept, killing vs. letting die, is an important distinction to make when looking at ethics. A utilitarian would hold that there is no difference between killing and letting die because it would yield the same happiness level for each action. In contrast, many others would argue that the act of killing someone, even if it were to save five others, is unjust because it takes an extra effort to initiate the killing whereas letting die is a passive action. This viewpoint is often referred to as the deontologist’s viewpoint. Deontologists would argue that there are certain rules that ought not be broken, even if they were to raise the overall happiness or pleasure of a community. Killing the healthy patient in this transplant case would be an example of a rule that ought not be broken, because most people generally believe that killing an innocent person is intuitively wrong. Although different deontologists make different distinctions on what laws ought not be broken, the general consensus is that not all actions that raise utility level should be