Utilitarianism Essay Sample
Where make you pull the line on what is right?
Ethical theories are something that have been tossed around between people for old ages. The difference over what is right or incorrect is eternal and has many ways of making an reply. Each of these theories that arise has both its benefits and drawbacks. No one theory can be perfect and fit everyone’s demands. For a theory to be successful it needs to hold protagonists. For it to hold protagonists people need to believe in it. For people to believe in it. it needs to profit them in some manner.
This paper will discourse the belongingss of utilitarianism and the benefits it has on society. It will besides compare utilitarianism to egoism. Kantian moralss. intuitionism and affirmatory action. Utilitarianism’s overall intent is to function the greater bulk and this paper sets out to turn out that. This paper will discourse many major points in utilitarianism such as: it links felicity and morality. it conforms to run into the demands of different state of affairss. requires state of affairs results to be just. and forces us to take in thoughts or non merely ours but the people around us.
This paper will besides discourse some of the unfavorable judgments about this theory. These unfavorable judgments include: taking excessively much clip to make a determination. computations to a determination can take to unforeseeable effects. population size is excessively large to set this theory into consequence and the distribution of wealth. money or other goods may non be even.
To get down we should acquire a feel for what precisely utilitarianism is. In a simple definition it is advancing the greater good for the bulk. This definition does non give the theory as a whole. justness in specifying it but as you read this paper you’ll get a better apprehension on merely how good utilitarianism is. Before we defend this theory against other theories out at that place we should acquire a better apprehension of what the utilitarianism theory all entails. First. this theory promotes the greater good for the bulk. For illustration if person were given the pick to salvage six submerging individual versus one. they should pick the six over the 1 because the six would greater the bulk. It’s of import in this theory to seek and delight more people to guarantee equity which brings me into the following point.
Utilitarianism promotes equality among people. This makes it to where before a determination can be made everyone’s thoughts and beliefs need to be taken into consideration. It is really distinct. Positive points are given to things that are happy and negative points are given to things that conveying approximately hurting or unhappiness. After all that is taken into consideration a determination is made based on what will advance the most positive response.
Another portion of utilitarianism is that it takes emotions into determinations. A batch of theories take emotions out of determinations because they say they can “alter” the determination devising procedure. This theory on the other manus takes felicity into history for mortality. If something causes happiness it should be good but if it causes hurting than if at all possible it should be avoided. This helps in the determination procedure because with utilitarianism where looking out for what increases the greater good and by increasing the greater good we want to increase felicity.
Flexibility. the one thing on everybody’s head. Everyone can utilize a small flexibleness in life. This theory offers it. Utilitarianism will conform to the different demands with different state of affairss. It understands that each and every state of affairs buzzword be alike and will hold different variables and results. You can’t merely establish it off a twosome universal regulations and name it good. My following country to turn to is why utilitarianism? With all the other theories out at that place why should you pick this one? This paper is traveling to speak about this theory versus a twosome others to where you can more so understand where this theory stands in comparing to others and you can see for yourself why this one comes out on top.
First off will be Egoism. Egoism is a theory about advancing what is best for one’s ego. Egoism is said to be a theory in which people are avaricious and self centered. Peoples merely look out for themselves and what benefits them. It doesn’t take into history that it may ache other people in the procedure of advancing one individual. With this theory there would be arrant pandemonium. Everyone would merely be seeking to acquire in front of everyone else. With utilitarianism though people are working together and advancing the better public assistance for everyone. Utilitarianism will assist the overall society unlike egoism which will merely do injury.
Following comes Kantian moralss. Kantian moralss is how one should move. This theory focuses more on the action of making something instead than the effects. Equally long as your moving in a “moral” manner so the effects of your actions won’t affair. This is non the manner person should travel about populating their life. If we go about life ne’er believing about the effects of our actions we could be doing overall more injury than good. We may ne’er recognize our way of devastation behind us. With utilitarianism we must believe about our actions in order to profit the greater good. In life you must look at all facets of a state of affairs including effects before an appropriate determination can be made on how to react.
Intuitionism is the following theory. Intuitionism is a theory that all determinations are based in intuition. A individual should merely “know” what is right and incorrect. This theory has nil to establish its reasoning’s off of. It is said to be speedy and without concluding. In this theory you make your determinations without have to latter set ground behind it. You can about make whatever you please every bit long as you can ground it within yourself. With utilitarianism you at least have a manner to support the actions you make. This theory doesn’t seem like much of a theory at all. You can’t travel about life making what you “feel” is right. You need some kind of guidelines to populate by and utilitarianism offers this along with flexibleness. It’s the best of both universes.
Finally affirmatory action is the last theory this paper will turn to. Affirmative action is giving advantages to members of deprived groups. This creates inequality within a society. Disadvantaged groups would include minorities such as people of different race so Caucasian. adult female and people with different spiritual background besides Christianity. These groups are given a encouragement in life to “even” things out. This doesn’t work out any jobs within a society all it does is do more jobs. Some people are acquiring things they don’t deserve while others are being pushed aside for things they do merit. An illustration of this would be colleges. Some colleges would hold it where they would hold a figure of pupils that would be accepted into the college that twelvemonth and so many of them had to be from assorted disadvantaged groups.
This would give a encouragement to pupils who usually wouldn’t have been accepted. they would now be so the school could run into that quota. On the other manus pupils non portion of deprived groups who deserved a topographic point in the college would acquire denied because musca volitanss would be full. This created an inequality in society. Utilitarianism doesn’t make this. It looks to make equality for everyone and non merely giving more chances to some groups. This theory over clip will merely do more jobs over clip because who knows where the line is drawn? How many encouragement in life would we hold to give member of deprived groups before they feel life is equal. Life should be about working difficult and acquiring in front non things handed to you.
This brings the paper to unfavorable judgments of utilitarianism. To get down we’ll talk about the sum of clip it takes to make a determination. Some people feel this theory takes excessively long to come to a determination and by that clip the state of affairs has either passed with no declaration. worsened with clip or been solved excessively rapidly and instances more injury than good. You have to retrieve though this theory is flexible and if state of affairss need to be acted in a timely manner so every bit long as the action taken doesn’t exceed the effect of the state of affairs with no action so it’s O.K. to do the action without ciphering it foremost.
The following unfavorable judgment would be that some deliberate actions can take to unforeseeable effects. With this sometimes non all variables are non accounted for or they have a better impact on the state of affairs so what was believed. A useful would so alter their class of action to acquire it back on path to advance the good within the bulk. If their action was non able to be changed they would allow the action run its class and so cipher a solution to repair the unforeseeable effect.
Population size is another concern. Peoples feel the overall population is excessively large to transfuse this sort of theory. It would be about impossible to advance the greater good for the bulk over a population this large. The distribution of resources is besides another job. A useful would believe everything should be distributed equal. Everything being every bit distributed would advance equality throughout people and would advance the greater good for the bulk.
With this information utilitarianism surly checks out on top. This theory seems to suit the demands of many. It has many good qualities about it such as equality and looking out for the bulk and non merely oneself. After reading this information I’m sure you can besides come to the decision the utilitarianism is the best theory for society at this minute in clip.
