Means or Ends

Means or Ends If you were put in the situation of having to save either one person, or five people, which would you choose? That’s a pretty simple solution; greatest good for the greatest number. Utilitarianism is the superior means of solving moral dilemmas. By explaining different cases, I will prove that Utilitarianism is the superior means of solving moral dilemmas. T.J is a profoundly brain damaged, critically ill infant. She is both blind and deaf. The nurses are struggling trying to take care of her. She often vomits back her feedings and is most often fed through a nasal gastro tube. The nurses have to decide whether they want to continue to make the baby suffer by continuing to feed her, or to stop feeding her and to end the pain and suffering. As a Utilitarian, the best solution would be to end the pain and suffering and stop feeding the baby. The infant is going to die regardless of whether they continue to feed it or not, it would just take longer for the baby to die if they continued to feed it. The worst thing to do would be to make the poor baby suffer. Early human embryo is composed of stem cells. Scientists believe that these pre-differentiated cells hold the key to curing many diseases. Among these are diabetes, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury, heart damage and cancer. They wish to experiment on these cells, either creating them themselves using donated eggs and sperm or using early embryos that are to be discarded from fertility clinics. As a Utilitarian you would agree to the stem cell research. The embryos that would be tested are from both donated egg and sperm, or from embryos that have already been discarded. Some believe embryos are human beings and should not be tested on. How do you justify when exactly a cell becomes a human being? Think about it. These donated embryos can help find a cure to all of these diseases, diseases that take away our loved ones forever. The choice is quite simple, do the stem cell research. There are many problems with the Deontological theory. Deontology fails to adequately solve moral dilemmas because not everyone agrees on the same morals, what may be morally ok for someone can be considered morally wrong for someone else. How do you justify what is moral? The ends do not justify the means for deontologists. Deontologists would choose to make someone suffer rather than end the suffering and pain because they believe it is morally wrong to kill someone. How is making someone suffer morally ok? Would you yourself want to experience pain and suffering even if you ask them to end it, but they choose not to because they are following what they believe to be moral? Another problem with deontology is that there is conflict between duties. There are also loopholes, and you cannot adequately define what is rational or not. Sacrifice the few for the sake of saving the many. In other words, save the five people. Everyone had different opinions on what is morally right and morally wrong, so how could that possibly be a great way of solving moral dilemmas? Not all of us would agree whether it was good or not. By following the simple rule, greatest good for the greatest number, or by focusing on the ends means, we can all be on the same page. Utilitarianism is the superior means of solving moral dilemmas.