Allison Baker
Prof. Ronald Davenport
PHI202-04
1 October 2017
Does Utilitarianism Make Sense?
Before I enrolled in this course, I never knew how much information there was on morality. I used to think that morals were simply what you personally thought was right and wrong, but I now know there is so much more to it. Morality has more of an impact on the world than I would’ve ever known, and learning about a topic such as utilitarianism has especially opened my views relating to society and morality. Although it was a difficult topic to understand at first, utilitarianism has taught me about it’s relationship to pain and pleasure, how it affects your bodily and mental happiness, and the “negative” side of this ideology.
The ultimate goal of …show more content…
Much like utilitarianism, the distribution problem aims to decide on a treatment that benefits the most people and saves the most lives; but the question was if it should be decided based on the total number of life years the patient will gain from treatment, or how many people it will immediately benefit. “The general question of how our limited health care resources should be distributed is one of the most important in medical ethics. The quality and quantity of thousands of people’s lives will be affected by the answers that we give.” (Hope 28-29). Along with the distribution problem come with the rule of rescue. The rule of rescue states "that it is normally more justified to spend more per life year gained than in situations where we cannot identify who has been helped." (Hope 32). My view of this rule is that lives shouldn't be disregarded just because they are not identified. This rule is applied to healthcare when there are multiple intervention options. Although one may be more expensive, it gains more life years rather than getting the treatment that will ultimately save more …show more content…
The goal of utilitarianism is to get the most happiness for the most amount of people, but in order to do that, you have to ignore the happiness of some. What that says to me is in order to get happiness, you have to take away happiness. That seems sort of flawed, but then again it is very unlikely to find a solution that will make all human being happy. With all the different opinions, beliefs, and lifestyles that people live in today’s modern society, it seems impossible to satisfy every single one. Some individual’s happiness is influenced by pleasure or pain, some may prefer mental happiness over bodily happiness. I think the idea of utilitarianism was created with good intentions, but there is just no way to generalize it to all persons.
Works Cited
Bentham, Jeremy. “Classical Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Hope, Tony. “Why Undervaluing ‘Statistical’ People Costs Lives”, Medical Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2004, New York.
Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism Redefined”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Pojman, Louis P. Vaughn, Lewis. “Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Williams, Bernard. “Against Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford
Prof. Ronald Davenport
PHI202-04
1 October 2017
Does Utilitarianism Make Sense?
Before I enrolled in this course, I never knew how much information there was on morality. I used to think that morals were simply what you personally thought was right and wrong, but I now know there is so much more to it. Morality has more of an impact on the world than I would’ve ever known, and learning about a topic such as utilitarianism has especially opened my views relating to society and morality. Although it was a difficult topic to understand at first, utilitarianism has taught me about it’s relationship to pain and pleasure, how it affects your bodily and mental happiness, and the “negative” side of this ideology.
The ultimate goal of …show more content…
Much like utilitarianism, the distribution problem aims to decide on a treatment that benefits the most people and saves the most lives; but the question was if it should be decided based on the total number of life years the patient will gain from treatment, or how many people it will immediately benefit. “The general question of how our limited health care resources should be distributed is one of the most important in medical ethics. The quality and quantity of thousands of people’s lives will be affected by the answers that we give.” (Hope 28-29). Along with the distribution problem come with the rule of rescue. The rule of rescue states "that it is normally more justified to spend more per life year gained than in situations where we cannot identify who has been helped." (Hope 32). My view of this rule is that lives shouldn't be disregarded just because they are not identified. This rule is applied to healthcare when there are multiple intervention options. Although one may be more expensive, it gains more life years rather than getting the treatment that will ultimately save more …show more content…
The goal of utilitarianism is to get the most happiness for the most amount of people, but in order to do that, you have to ignore the happiness of some. What that says to me is in order to get happiness, you have to take away happiness. That seems sort of flawed, but then again it is very unlikely to find a solution that will make all human being happy. With all the different opinions, beliefs, and lifestyles that people live in today’s modern society, it seems impossible to satisfy every single one. Some individual’s happiness is influenced by pleasure or pain, some may prefer mental happiness over bodily happiness. I think the idea of utilitarianism was created with good intentions, but there is just no way to generalize it to all persons.
Works Cited
Bentham, Jeremy. “Classical Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Hope, Tony. “Why Undervaluing ‘Statistical’ People Costs Lives”, Medical Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2004, New York.
Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism Redefined”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Pojman, Louis P. Vaughn, Lewis. “Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, 2011, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
Williams, Bernard. “Against Utilitarianism”, The Moral Life. Fifth Edition, Oxford