Argument For Utilitarianism

The Argument for Utilitarianism

Among the ethical arguments that we have seen, it is clear that a form of utilitarianism is the best option, that is, we should always do what brings about the best outcome where the outcomes are rated by the amount of good they bring about. The utilitarian argument says that in any given decision, the option that brings about the most good is the right thing to do every time. That being said, the definition of good is extremely important to the soundness of the argument. In this case, the best view of what is good is that of a hedonist, that is, a thing is good if it brings about pleasure and bad if it brings about suffering. To add to this however, I would argue that the best good outcome is the outcome which
Take for example the problem of the uneven distribution of wealth in the world. Though it brings about pleasure to have money, money on its own is not worth anything, rather it is a physical representation of how much access a person has to goods and services. That being said, by this moral code once I have enough money to pay for my absolute needs such as food, water, shelter and the pleasure to stay sane, I should give everything else to those who need it. If this argument was amplified, and every person on Earth only took what they absolutely needed and gave away whatever they had in excess until everyone had what they needed there would be significantly less suffering/pain. Additionally, once everyone got what they needed, there could theoretically be additional funds which when spread evenly among all people would allow everyone to live more comfortably and if not, by reducing the bad to an insignificant number there would still be a large net gain of good evenly distributed among the maximum amount of people and less bad which would be the best world
In this scenario, a doctor has five patients with a rare blood type who all need different transplants, he then finds a healthy individual whose organs would save the lives of the five patients. This argument correctly predicts that many individuals would be hesitant about making the choice that leads to the best outcome. That is, most people would find it hard to justify killing a healthy patient, even if it is to save five sick patients despite it being the right choice. The reluctance, dissenters would argue, proves that there are times when a utilitarian moral code would not be best. This however is a false assumption. This argument is based on the premise that because we would have a hard time justifying it, it must be false yet that is not true. What stands in the person’s way is not ethics, in fact by the utilitarianist view it’d be unethical not to kill the first man, rather the problem lays in the social construct of our