Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism- You should act according to that which will result in 'the greatest happiness for the majority' (Bentham & Mill)

Advantages

  • Theoretically would be beneficial to everyone as it would make the majority happy in every situation
  • Objective- a rule which everyone could follow/ base their ethical decisions on
  • Teleological- Based on consequence as opposed to the act- sometimes we know that a seemingly bad act will have the greatest consequences

Disadvantages

  • Excludes the minority
  • Impossible to calculate the consequences of every action. Bentham's Hedonic Calculus is not very clear and does not state to what extent we should calculate the happiness to last
  • Mill says intellectual is the greater and physical is the lesser, but how do we measure how much intellectual or physical happiness someone experiences in comparison to someone else?
  • Mill's Rule Utilitarianism would mean that many would be subjected to living according to moral laws they disagree with

Evaluation

In my opinion, Utilitarianism is a brilliant idea but it is impractical. The idealistic theory could never work as we are unable to measure the exact principle of the argument- the consequence of happiness. It is my opinion that we should act according to that which will result in the greatest happiness, but in the short term and in the matter that we understand happiness, as this is the closest we are able to get to reaching the goal set by Bentham and Mill. 

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