Theories Of Utilitarianism

In this paper I will talk about a moral theory that goes by the name utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the view that actions are morally acceptable if and only if they produce at least as much happiness as any other available action. The more happiness and less suffering that results from our actions, the better the action is and the right action is the one that produces the greatest balance of happiness over suffering. Utilitarianism can be broken up into two parts, a theory of what is valuable and a theory of right action. Utilitarianism is a way of looking at morality that instead of saying this actions right or wrong action, it looks at the result. Utilitarian never okay to murder it looks at the action and let’s look at the consequences
and that going to determine right based on what results in the greatest good for the greatest number of people so an action in and of itself has no central value and action is neither right or wrong. It is on right or wrong and its effect is it in a greater amount of pleasure or greater amount of pain and suffering that should be how we look at things.
In a theory of what is valuable might say that money will help us get happiness, and in theory of right action it maximizes by producing the most of what valuable or the most expected value. A good example of utilitarianism is if a doctor has six patients who have a flu and the doctor has five medicine available and they all need the medicine to survive, but you have one patient needs all five medicine to survive and the rest of the five patients can survive with only a single medicine. Jeremy Bentham “would say that we save the five patient and allow the one patient to die because saving the five lives produce more happiness and prevent suffering than just saving one life.” (Sandel 34). I would agree will Bentham if I was the put in that situation because I would save more lives in that day and as a doctor your job is to save life and if you can save more life than just one then even better. In this situation I would agree which utilitarianism from a doctor’s point of view.
Utilitarianism is a very simple, elegant theory which is built on value, happiness, that is shared widely around the world. In utilitarianism calculate each person happiness counts for as much as anyone else’s there is something very natural about the thought that happiness is valuable and the more we make of what valuable the better. Which end up creating some worries concerns on the Utilitarian theory of value. A lot of people have disputed that only happiness is valuable and only suffering invaluable. Could we be happy even though we are massively deluded about our lives? Maybe the people we think are our friends really despise us, and the work we think is a success is really widely derided. In that case, we might still be happy, but surely our lives would be lacking much that is valuable.
These worries can be avoided to some extent by revising the utilitarian theory of value.
May it not just happiness, but wellbeing more broadly understood that valuable. For example, a person has an accident in transmitter room of a television station. Electrical equipment has fallen on his arm, and he cannot be rescued with turning off the transmitter for fifteen minutes. A super bowl game is in progress, and it is watched by a lot of people and it will not be over for at least one more hour. that person injury would not get any worse if we wait, but the person hand has been mashed and receiving extremely painful electrical shocks. Should we rescue the person now or wait until the game is over? Does the right thing to depends on how many people are watching, whether it’s one million or five million? “Bentham would defiantly say we leave that person to suffer and let the one million or five million people to happy”. (sandal 34) On this example I do not agree with because we should save that person’s life. Who know within that one hour if the person would have gotten a lot of shock to make him brain dead. Then he will be suffering and in pain and the one million people would be living their own
lives.
Bentham say that “the greatest good for the greatest number.” (Sandel 57) but mill says that really “what going to result the greatest good for the greatest number of people is liberty.” (Sandel 50) in order to produce the greatest number we need to let individual people do what they believe is best for them as long as they do not hurt others of course.
For example, the four sailor who made a difficult decision on the twentieth day. The decision involved a cabin boy who had been drinking seawater which is in fact poisonous and become ill and finally would have die. The other three sailors made the decision to stab kill and eat the cabin boy, so that the rest of them would live and on day twenty-four they were rescued then they were tried for murder. Their defense “was well the cabin boy was going to die anyway if we did not kill him and eat, we would have all died and therefore we should be excused.” (sandel 33) On this example I do not agree that this was the right thing to do because it did not bring happiness it brought more suffering in the end. The two man went to prison and the other man I bet he was regretting why he could not have stopped them from killing the cabin boy. That boy maybe would not have die in the end if they just gave him one more day. He might have been the one who would have saved them all. They killed the cabin boy without his consent he was still a minor who maybe would have become a doctor or something more if they let him live. This example did
not produce pleasure instead it produces more pain in the end. We allow this sort of behavior it is going to encourage murders more common, hard to recruit cabin more cabin boys utilitarianism is basically the right thing to do whatever brings about the most pleasure overall you are looking to maximize pleasure minimize overall pain. Utilitarian viewpoint preventing one death is very good thing, but preventing very severe damages can relieve more suffering and so produce more value that a single life. preventing a much large still number of somewhat less severe damage is more valuable than preventing the comparatively smaller number of severe transformations. It is never right to let a person to suffer so that other people can be happy. People have a right not to have their interest sacrificed for the greater good. Utilitarianism seems like it would justify the poor treatment of the minority in the name of bettering the majority, utilitarianism does not respect individual rights. utilitarianism is not egoism you might think that it is the case at the bringing by thinking is an authorization to do whatever brings most pleasure to us an individual but more about bringing the overall pleasure. Both Bentham and Mill both argued, happiness is our final end and it’s what we do everything else for. Happiness should drive our morality but not to make someone else suffer just to get happiness. Utilitarianism recommends that we maximize overall pleasure minimize overall pain. which ignores any important of human rights that we might think that the one person in all of us enjoy. If you value individual rights you are probably not going to be happy with Unitarians.