Rule utilitarianism

“According to the Divine ordinance the life of animals and plants is preserved not for themselves but for man.” This is to say that animals are only used at our disposal because they do not think in the same ways humans do. The founder of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, thought differently than Aquinas and Kant and believed in the direct rights of animals. He rebutted those who thought like Kant by stating “The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”…

Imagine, a perfect world where everyone is equal. In this world no one is better than anyone else. This world is ideal, right? Not so much through Kurt Vonnegut’s eyes with his short story “Harrison Bergeron”. Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian style is portrayed through his diction, details, language and many other literature tools. Vonnegut creates a perfect world with a twisted version of equality with his use of short syntax, depressing details, and cold harsh imagery. Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”…

efficiency by Enron was inflating the numbers which provided the desired efficiency and predictability that investors wanted. They also used the future value of potential profits to drive profits up for the current day which should have been against the rules due to the ethical standards of business. Similarly, to maintain efficiency, the company took the rationality of the workplace and made it into irrationality by manipulating the stock market. Ritzer (2004) stated that there was danger in…

Legalization of Medical Marijuana and the Doctrine of Utilitarianism Introduction Utilitarianism is one of the moral theories that is best known and influential. According to this theory, the moral worth of an action is mainly determined its contribution towards utility that enhances happiness and pleasure. It is mainly concerned with the pleasure that people get through the moral actions taken. The focus is on the greatest number of people. In the pursuit of this theory, then legalization of…

The article “The Moral Status of Animals” examines how humans perceive themselves as having moral status, while at the same time they also justify that non-humans obtain no moral status. Lori Gruen who is the author of this article states that these people often suggest that animals cannot be harmed in a moral sense like humans. But membership to a specific species does not justify the moral claim made by those who belong to the Homo sapiens species. Species membership does not explain why…

In ‘Personal Identity’, Derek Parfit presented the idea that being destroyed and replicated is just as good as ordinary survival. This essay will focus on Parfit’s argument of the Branch Line Case and will examine why personal identity matters, a critical perspective and will discuss an objection and respond to the empty question. Parfit argued that being replicated then destroyed resulted in the same outcome as ordinary survival. From the analogy of the Branch Line case, a human body was…

People act in benign selfishness. A person wakes up, showers, eats, brushes his teeth, and preforms other activities to take care of himself. If selfishness is focusing on oneself and acting in a way that benefits oneself, then everyone should strive to be selfish. The opposition would argue that if each person acted selfish then the world would be an aggressive campaign to compete and do better against one another. That belief is caused by the word selfish being unclearly defined. Benign…

“The difference between the brain of the human and the higher animal obviously lies in the degree, not the difference on the essence” (Charles Darwin). The purpose of the quote is to express the feeling that the animal and human is similar, they have the human-like qualities. In Life of Pi written by Yann Martel, Pi uses animal imagery to show that animals that can be mad, suffer, and sad which are all human qualities. In the Life of Pi, animals have the human-like emotions. They will be mad…

Reflective Statement In my opinion, Oedipus was not going to be a simple task. The idea of going deep into this topic caused hesitations and doubts since Oedipus is more than far fetched. To deal with the Greek world of that time is something risky. You need precise information and clear understanding Athenian tragedy. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is the first in the dramatic historical chronology. It deals with the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes King of Thebes. In the process of the play he…

Introduction In philosophy, selfishness is the hypothesis that one's self is, or ought to be, the inspiration and the objective of one's own activity. Egoism has two variations, descriptive or normative . The descriptive (or positive) variation imagines selfishness as a real depiction of human issues. That is, people are roused by their own advantages and cravings, and they can't be depicted something else. The normative variation recommends that people ought to be so spurred, paying little…