Christian hedonism

1. The Greatest Happiness Principle discusses that the morally right action is the one that causes the greatest overall amount o pleasure ore least amount of suffering. The text, Fundamentals of Ethics explains it as the utilitarian outlook by saving that is required for us to create the greatest good for the greatest number (123).” In doing so, it is not always the action that benefits the most people but provides most pleasure. Secondly, we must choose the act that creates the greatest net…

We live in a world where our possessions are a symbol of success. The bigger the car the louder that speaks about your bank account. Most people buy things as just something to do here in America. We are a particularly wasteful society. There is an uneven distribution of wealth and the poor can live right in the same neighborhood as the ultra rich. Most of the people here plan their lives around what will make them successful. They use the word success as a way of saying “well off enough to buy…

. One of the greatest problems utilitarians have had to face is that of measurement and evaluation. Since the majority of people gain their ideas of happiness from a process of abstraction. I.E "I have a general idea of what a plesaureable experience is, so I will attempt to find commonalities until I determine what exactly pleasure is." There are bound to be different interpretations of what pleasure is as humans tend to have different types of experiences they enjoy. The first piece of…

Mill’s Utilitarianism is a seemingly simple yet quixotic approach to the issue of what makes a moral action. Mill believes that the goodness of a moral action depends on the amount of happiness it creates. However, critics find issue with this principle because if the end result of maximizing happiness is all that matters, unjust actions such as murder are moral as long as they maximize happiness. Despite his efforts of ameliorating this problem with his concept of justice, his use of justice…

In this situation according to Mill’s, “When given a choice between two acts, utilitarianism states that the act that should be chosen is the one that creates the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.” The five workers have a higher utility than the one worker on the other track. According to mortality it is better to act in a way that benefits the most quantity of people, even if it causes harm to kill one to save five. Having to make a choice between who lives…

Martin Seligman shares how people can become happier by discussing three different life styles in which individuals are happy. After sharing how happy people differ from the average person, — they are more social— he goes on to describe the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. In the pleasant life, individuals seek what makes them happy and surround their life around those items. The good life consists of individuals finding what their strengths are and integrating those…

Term Paper: Self-Examination Throughout the duration of this course, I have been given the opportunity to reflect and evaluate my life from a series of areas humanities has presented to me. Given that every angle one can approach the world from has its own value and significance when looking at our lives and the world we in, one subject has appealed most to me: the meaning of life. Life has a different meaning for everyone. Reading various works on what life means have engaged me to introspect…

The preferred action that I have chosen is the most morally justified because it does not involve the sacrificing of an individual in the anticipation of benefiting another individual. It also shows the rights of the patient being exercised, her ability to use her autonomy and make an informed decision. Dr. Brown is assuming that he understands Anna’s situation, and using that assumption to assert his values and perceptions onto her. The main argument for act Utilitarianism is happiness being an…

The main principle of Mill’s utilitarianism is the greatest happiness principle, which is defined as: actions are right insofar as they maximize general utility, which Mill recognizes as happiness (Cahn & Markie, 2009). He argues that happiness is the only source of morality and that people never desire anything but happiness (Cahn & Markie, 2009). Mill supports this claim by displaying that all other objects of people’s desire are either means to happiness, or included in the definition of…

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was published in 1976 and is set in an ambiguous time period and location in a utopia called Omelas. This story discusses the idea of whether or not it is acceptable to destroy a small amount of people’s happiness for the good of the majority. The ethical theory behind this notion is utilitarianism: “that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons”…