Utilitarianism And Democracy

Like many of my classmates have said in their blogs, utilitarianism threatens the rights of individuals. Every individual is born with certain rights, such as the right to freedom and we are all equal. The mere idea of utilitarianism threatens our right to freedom. Being free means that we have the ability to make decisions that are best for us as a member of society. If we lived in a utilitarian society, our right to freedom would be violated because we would be doing what is best for the majority of society, not what everyone wants to be done. Tori brought up Michael Sandel’s example about the doctor contemplating killing one health patient in order to save the lives of 5 sick individuals. The rights of the one health individual would be violated if the doctor decides to kill him because he has the right to live and make decisions for himself. Killing him may satisfy the utilitarianism theory, however, it directly violates his individual rights. Utilitarianism threatens the rights of every individual living today because it only cares about what is best for society and not what …show more content…
Democracy is a form of utilitarianism, in my opinion, however, a democracy does what the people want and protects the rights of every individual. This idea is shown through the Supreme Court. As citizens we may have wanted a certain law to be passed because we believed it would protect us from a certain threat, however, the Supreme Court may declare the law as unconstitutional because it violates the rights of a certain group. One example of this that comes right to my mind is slavery. If the US was a utilitarian government, slavery probably would have been allowed because it benefited a large amount of the country and only “harmed” one group. However, because the US is a democracy, the Supreme Court ruled that slavery was unconstitutional because it violated the rights of one