Elements Of Act Utilitarianism

Assignment 1# Objections to Act Utilitarianism Act utilitarianism, as defined in lecture, is the ethical theory that states an act is only right if and only if the consequences of that act creates the greatest net balance of well-being out of all possible actions. For this paper, I will also draw on the definition of utilitarianism given by William Shaw, which has three main features. The first is that the only thing considered good unto itself is the well-being of humans and sentient creatures. The second is that good is additive. Total well-being is the sum of each individual’s well-being. Finally, the last is that each individual’s well-being is equally valuable. With this framework, the strongest objection to utilitarianism is that …show more content…
Act consequentialism offers no room for supererogation, that is, an act is morally required if leads to an increase in overall well-being. All other actions are considered morally wrong. Most people, however, do not act this way. Take for example, a person watching an hour of television to increase his own well-being. He could spend that hour volunteering at a soup kitchen to increase the well-being of a greater number of people. Assuming that the cost to him is relatively low (i.e. all he loses is the lack of well-being from not watching television), it would be morally wrong for the person to not volunteer. However, this was just one hour of his life, what about the other hours? Under act utilitarianism, the person would be required to sacrifice every hour of his life if it meant bettering the life of more people. This would eventually lead to a significant decline in his personal well-being, but that would not matter from a utilitarian perspective because his increased ill-being is balanced out by the increased well-being of others. People generally wish to increase their own well-being, and so would not act according to act utilitarianism. This inaction is also noted by Peter Singer, who writes in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” that most people don’t provide aid to those in poor …show more content…
Consequentialism only requires that the morally correct action to be the one that incurs the best consequences, with the definition of best loosely defined. In other forms of consequentialism, which do not define good as depending only on net well-being, people are not so restricted. The definition of good for a non-utilitarian form of consequentialism could include things such as upholding family duty, promoting personal happiness, etc. It could also allow for your own personal well-being to be weighted greater than that of others, which would require a person to sacrifice less to still act in a morally correct way. While these forms are not necessarily “better” or “worse” they are easier to follow, and so the objection would not