Act Utilitarianism

Ethics The field of ethics ( or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Ethics is the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it and there are two levels: on individual level and on society level. On individual level is a person’s own moral beliefs i.e. what he accepts as right and wrong, good or bad. For example, vegetarian and non-vegetarian and on society level is norms and standards accepted by a society. The word ethics derived from Greek word, ‘Ethos’ which means customs. Ethics is basically the philosophical study of morality and the word moral is derived from a Latin word ‘mores’ which means manners.
Morality (from the Latin ‘moralitas’, manner, character, proper behavior) is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiate intentions, decisions and actions between those that are good or right and bad or wrong. The scientific study of morality rests on the assumption that a natural science of society is possible and also is merely studying the workings of different societies and cultures, their standards of right and wrong, good or bad. It is not judgmental nor evaluative. Basically the scientific study of morality is descriptive ethics which is studying the structure of society’s moral code and patterns of right behavior.. Philosophers are interested in Ethics for two basic purposes: normative and analytic ethics. Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. In a sense, it is a search for an ideal litmus test of proper behavior. The golden rule is a classic example of a normative principle: We should do to others what we would want others to do to us. Since I do not want my neighbor to steal my car, then it is wrong for me to steal her car. Since I would want people to feed me if I was starving, then I should help feed starving people Using this same reasoning, I can theoretically determine whether any possible action is right or wrong. The Golden rule is an example of a normative theory that establishes a single principle against which we judge all actions. In analytic ethics it is basically concerned with analytic like studying the meaning of words used in moral discourses and also study of whether moral judgments are true or false. Philosophers today usually divided ethical theories into three general subject areas: meta ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. Meta ethics investigates where our ethical principles comes from, and what they mean like, ‘ Are they merely social inventions?’, ‘Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions?’, Meta ethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow or the consequences of out behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns or nuclear war.

Customary n Reflective
Ethics may be defined as the philosophical study of morality. Ehitcs comes from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning customs or manners. Commonly we speak of people being ethical or moral to mean good or right and unethical and immoral to mean wrong or bad. Philosophical morality or ethics is the study of what makes something moral or ethical, good or right, and unethical or immoral bad or wrong. Morality deals with humans and how they relate to others and the world around them. It deals with how we treat one another so as to promote what is good and right, Ethics, also known as moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions avout morality. Morals define personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied. In other words ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. So while a person’s moral code is usually unchanging, the ethics he or she practices can be other dependent. When considering the difference between ethics and morals, it may be helpful to consider a criminal defense lawyer. Though the lawyer’s personal code likely finds murder immoral and reprehensible, ethics demand the accused client to be defended as vigorously as possible, even when the lawyer know the party is guilty and that a freed defendant would potentially lead to more crime. Ethics must override personnel morals for the greater good of upholding a justice system in which the accused are given a fair trial and the prosecution must have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Morality has todo with values, that is with normative standard of evaluation and normative rules of conduct. It means the criteria that an individual or a society uses in judging things and persons as good or bad, desirable or undersirable, worthy or worthless. ‘Normative rules of conduct.’ Are prescriptive principles according to which an individual or a society determindes what acts are right or wrong, and what duties, obligations and right people have in various circumstances of life. Morality in most parts of the world is largely a matter of custom with, here and there, individuals reflecting on moral matters and under the guidance of conscience, refusing to accpt the customs of their country or class or ‘set’/ Basically, there are two types of morality: customary and reflective morality. Customary morality are morals based on the customs and traditions of society. In other words, it is traditional morality refers to the moral systems handed down through custom from gerneration to gerneration. And reflective morality are those that are based on what you believe to be right and not others. It requires that moral ideas to be carefully examined and tested, Customary morality can become refective and dynamic when handed down and accepted are subjected to analysis and criticism. Moral growth occurs as the individual develops the capacity to reason about his moral beliefs. Instead of blindly adopting his soceity’s moral code or being easily shocked by the moral systems of other cultures, he is able to think clearly and coherently about any set of moral norms. Then he can decide for himself what standards of evaluation and rules of conduct to commit himself. Shift from customary morality to reflective morality be accomplished lies in ethics, the philosophical study of morality. It’s supreme goal is to build a moral order which can stand up to the critical investigation of reflective men. Since humans are trying their hard to develop into morally mature development, we are engaged in the practice of moral philosophy.

Utilitarianism: The basic concept of utilitarian ethics, is the idea of utility: an act is right if it is useful. According to utilitarianism an act is considered right when it is bringing about a desirable good end, an end that has intrinsic value. ..The basic principle of utilitarian ethics is an act is right if it is good which means whether an act is right what its consequences are and then determining the intrinsic goodness and or badness of those consequences. ..Now to know the standards of intrinsic value by which utilitarian judge the goodness of the consequences of a right act.
Before going into details, there are two types of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.
Act utilitarianism give importance in consequences of an action where concerns with only the pleasure and happiness. Comparably rule utilitarianism is if an action is accordance with a rule, it is said to be right.
…further more there are two main utilitarian who proposed two different answers to this. Jeremy Bentham said “pleasure” and gave importance to consequences of an action which brings about pleasure. Where as John Stuart Mill said “happiness” and have added that happiness is not merely a sum total of pleasure.
…Jeremy Bentham have proposed the fundamental norm of hedonistic utilitarianism : An act is right if it brings about pleasure and an act is wrong if it brings about pain. John Stuart Mill gave the fundamental norm of Eudemonistic Utilitarianism : An act is right if it brings about happiness and wrong if it brings about
unhappiness.
..John Stuart mill and Jeremy Bentham gave the main contribution in the theory of utilitarianism. JB was the teacher oh JSM. He agreed some of theory which B propounded “Greatest happiness of the greatest number.” But he was not ready to go with the whole way with him. He defended U against numerous attacks and also added some new element to what B gave in theory.
...Accd.
to B, nature has placed man under the guidance of two sovereign: ‘Pleasure and pain’. He said “man is a pleasure seeking and a pain avoiding animal.” Whatever brings pleasure is good and whatever brings pain is bad. And our duty is to maximize the balance of pleasure nor pain in life. This position B called the principle of utility

Aristotle’s conception of eudaemonia

The Keynote of Aristotle’s ethics is struck in the first sentence of his great work “Nichomachian Ethics”- ‘every art and every inquiry, every action and choice, seems to aim at some good; whence the good has rightly been defined as that at which all things aim. All actions aim at something other than itself and from its tendency to produce this it derives its value.’ Aristotle’s ethics is definitely teleological morality for him consists in doing certain actions not because we see them to be right in themselves but because we see them to be such as will being us nearer to the ‘good for
man’. He assumes that there is one supreme or final good to which all human activities ultimately tend or towards which they are finally directed. Aristotle gave to the end or final cause of moral life the name of Eudaimonia, a word often translated as ‘happiness’ and more suitably as well-being. The Greek term ‘ Eudaimon’ is composed of two parts: ‘eu’ means well and ‘daimon’ means divinity or ‘spirit’, giving the literal sense ‘having a good guardian spiritor’ to be living in a way that is well forward by a god. But Aristotle regards Eudaimon as a mere substitute for living well or well-being.

But this verbal agreement on the final good conceals profound disagreements as to its nature. Some men identify it with pleasure, others with the honors of political life, still others with life of reflective contemplation. Aristotle briefly reviews these arguments refuting the first two of these three suggestions and defers the third, which is his preferred interpretation of ‘eudaimonia’.

One may naturally ask why Aristotle assumed that there is only one final good to which all other activities are directed. Aristotle answers that Eudaimonia is the only thing that is (1) always desirable for itself and never for the sake of something else and all other goods are desirable for its sake. (2) it is self-sufficient. He defines eudaimonia as the exercise of man’s soul (realization of man’s capacities) in accordance with excellence(virtue) and if there be more than one excellence, then in accordance with the best and most complete excellences.

In his theory of self realization he uses the word eudaimonia to describe the moral end and for a group of moral theories which connect the state of happiness with the process of self realization. It may be defined as the ethical theory which regards the moral end as the perfection of the total nature of man, involving his fullest happiness in the realization of his capacities.

According to his theory happiness differs from pleasure.
(a) In being the accompaniment not of one particular activity, but of the harmonious co-operation of all a man’s activities.
(b) In being a more permanent and less changeable state of mind.
(c) In being more closely bound up with the activities which it accompanies, so that it is not inappropriate to speak of the activities as in some sense a part of happiness.

In the fullest sense of the word, happiness can only be predicated of a life as a whole-a fact that is expressed in the saying of solon quoted by Aristotle – ‘call no man happy till he is dead’. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is although Aristotle emphasizes the other regarding, social aspects of happiness, he also advocates pure intellectual activity the contemplation of scientific and philosophical truths, apart from any attempt to apply them to practice. The connection between the human function and human happiness implies that contemplation is a supremely important element in happiness. For contemplation is the highest fulfillment of our nature as rational beings, it is the sort of rational activity that we share with the gods who are rational beings with no need to apply reason to practice. Aristotle infers that contemplation is the happiest life available to us, in so far as we have the rational intellects we share with gods.

For little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end to resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what is the characteristic function of man and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue.

Aristotle is lead to the provisional and formal definition of well-being by the following considerations. In the 1st place well-being must be complete in itself, since it is not a subordinate end but an unconditional good desirable for its man sake and preferable to any other.
Secondly, man’s well-being must consist in the fulfillment of the work for which he exists and in which his true self finds an expression. The nature of this function can only be determined by human soul. Human soul consists of two parts: the rational and the irrational which may be inseparable. The irrational parts consist of an unconscious element of emotion and desires which is shared by man with the lower animals. It is only the rational element which is peculiar to men. Thus his emotion and desire are naturally under the authority of reason which is the proper regulator of his conscious actions. In the exercise of reason and therefore in the according to Aristotle thinking about certain truths, about reality (eternal truth) is also is highest virtue. Theoretical wisdom is concerned with three kinds of truth:
(1) Truth of metaphysics
(2) Study of mathematics
(3) Study of natural philosophy He considers this as the essence of eudaimonia and is dependent intellectual faculty well-being is purely an is theoretical wisdom, which contemplates about external truth that we study in metaphysics. This intellectual faculty is God like or divine faculty. It is the only spark of divine faculty found in human being.

Regulation of emotion and desire and desire by reason man fulfills his true function, the end for which he exists. (realisations of eudomonia).
Thirdly, since the life of well being is complete and all satisfied the function of a man who lives this life reaches’ its highest excellence which is equivalent to saying that he possesses virtue eudaimonia is in accordance with virtue?
Fourthly, ‘it must be an activity and not mere potentiality’.
Fifthly, well being is not attainable in a single moment but for its realization it requires the whole life of a man in its normal length from maturity to death i.e. it must be manifested not merely for short periods but in a complete life.

From this discussion, true emerges a definition of well being or human good as an activity if soul in accordance with virtue in a complete life. Then Aristotle begins by discussing how goodness of character is produced in what materal in what way it is exhibited. It is neither natural nor unnatural to man; we start with a capacity for it, but this has to be developed by teaching and constant practice. It is not like the faculties of sense which are present, we have to practice them. We become just or temperate by doing such acts. ,mm