What Is The Difference Between John Stuart Mill And Act Utilitarianism

Improved Essays
, 2016
John Stuart Mill thoughts upon utilitarianism was that happiness equals pleasure and the absence of pain and unhappiness equals pain and not happiness. The root word of utilitarianism is utility, which can be defined as the state of being profitable, useful, or beneficial. Utilitarianism, in other words, can be described as the moral beliefs that an action that is right can produce the greatest good for a great amount of people. That being said, it is seen as a mathematical theorem which is looking at a total number of units that makes someone happy when an action is given. It is based on the calculations of an outcome of a certain action. If someone thinks that a certain action will bring them an optimum amount of happiness to the most
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Both act-utilitarianism and rule- utilitarianism agree with the idea that morality right or wrong actions depends on the effect of it. Act-utilitarianism can be described as an act that is only right if it maximizes the total usefulness and results in the greatest amount of good in a great amount of people. It considers the outcome of a single act. The action of act-utilitarianism as to yield a great amount of utility than any other action. On the other hand, rule utilitarianism can be described as following a specific rule that is applied to a situation rather than look at the outcome. It can be looked at as by following the rules, the greatest good will insure a natural result. It has to do with a specific action that is justified with a specific rule. It can be seen as the morality of a person’s actions are judged in reference to a moral rule and the moral rules are to be judged by a moral code that produces the greatest amount of utility. The main difference is that act utilitarianism is based on the evaluation of one’s actions, while rule-utilitarianism looks at the rule and evaluate the actions towards to rules to see if it is useful, it is the rules of conduct that provides

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