Eric Singer

people are not members of our race does not entitle us to abuse them, and similarly the fact that some people are less resourceful than others does not mean that their concerns may be disregarded. Peter Singer published Animal Liberation in 1975 which has been mentioned as a leading prompt on leaders…

TL;DR – Smart machines need to be used with ethics in mind or have ethics included as part of the design. The Gartner article “Create Smart Machines With Ethics in Their 'Minds '” (Buytendijk, & Andrews, 2015) examines how ethics should be included within the programming of smart machines. The article describes five levels of ethical programming. Level 0 is where ethics in not part of the programming of a device or software. The idea behind level 0 is the devices must perform as described,…

Humans attribute value to objects. Bentham tries to find what humans value fundamentally in a manner similar to the first cause argument. Through this process he deduces that humans fundamentally value pleasure, along with the avoidance of pain. The reason pleasure was the ultimate conclusion is that pleasure cannot be traded away. Bentham is a utilitarian, so he believes in the meaning of the consequences rather than the meaning of the actions. These trades adding up have a net consequence.…

The principle of utility states that social welfare is the pre-eminent social value. Utilitarianism describes what is “good” being synonymous with what is overall best for the community and maximizes what is ethically right. Utilitarianism also focuses on the consequences of an action. According to Bentham’s Utilitarianism, by nature, maximizing pleasure and minimalizing pain is the metric individuals use when determining the morality of an action. When assessing the scenario described,…

Philosophy is the application of ethical approaches to issues, controversies, theories, and ideas. It is in one’s nature to seek answers to questions which are asked. It is also in one’s nature to question and decide if an idea or ideal is right or wrong, but in the case of ethics; permissible or impermissible. In this text, we are going to use these terms as acceptable or permitted and vice-versa. In this essay, we will be analyzing the article, “A Defense of Abortion” by philosopher, Judith…

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill’s ethical system of utilitarianism is a system that is based on the foundation of Jeremy Bentham’s principle of utility, which evaluates actions based on the actions’ consequences. Also, Bentham defines happiness as pleasure and states that the right action is the action that produces the most happiness for the greatest number of people. As a result, this system promotes selflessness. Mill further elaborates that happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain.…

What is utilitarianism? “Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that hold that actions are morally good in so far as they promote utility” (Restrepo, 09.05). In other words, utilitarianism produces optimistic or the greater good. Every day we all make personal moral decisions that make us utilitarian; hence it also allows us to promote the greatest happiness for our peers. Another way to understand utilitarianism is to understand that “Utilitarian’s determine morally good actions by appealing to…

According to the ideology of Classical Utilitarianism, humans have the moral obligation to choose their actions based off what will result in the most net happiness. Happiness and unhappiness in this ideology is based off subjective experience in terms of emotion and bodily sensation. Therefore, happiness corresponds to a pleasant experience while unhappiness corresponds to an unpleasant experience. Classical Utilitarianism relies on the Greatest Happiness Principle, which states that the right…

In order to understand the position of John Stuart Mill in both of these situations, one must recognize what he advocates. Therefore, it is reasonable to assess the concept of utilitarianism with his work, “Utilitarianism”. The rudimentary perception behind this philosophical notion is that deeds are ethically correct only if they produce the greatest overall amount of good for everyone, or in this case, happiness. This is otherwise known as, “the effects of things upon their happiness, the…

Utilitarianism is the philosophical theory that shows us how we should evaluate a wide range of things that involve choices that people in general face and it is a philosophy which focuses on happiness, pleasure and consequences. Utilitarianism rests on consequentialism which mean that they the consequences of actions that determine whether they are good or bad. Utilitarian reasoning can be used for various ideas and actions. This reasoning can both be used for moral reasoning and even other…