Utilitarianism: Inequality And Distributive Justice

Introduction For the past decades in the welfare economy concern, the question of “how can we be sure that inequalities are simply unjust?” has been answered by countless principles offered by philosophers as well as economists. One of the topic raised is utilitarianism as the principle that holds inequality and distributive justice by Jeremy Betham (1748-1832). The idea is that the distribution of goods is just if and only if it maximizes aggregate utility (Reiss, 2013 p.256). Some critics were later discovered whether utilitarianism sustains the concept of distributive justice. Reiss for instance argued that utilitarianism ignores people’s right (p.261). Other conceptual difficulties of utilitarianism are that 1) the impracticality on its
The core focus of consequentialist asses the rightness of actions, laws and policies based only on the outcome they produce. Simply speaking, utilitarianism seeks to increase people’s utility in which the term “utility” used in this context refers to happiness or the balance of pleasure over pain. Other contemporary utilitarian prefers to define utility as preference satisfaction. This concept created in regards to how should the benefits and burdens or well-being distributed in the society. Pigou 1932 suggests the transference of wealth from the rich to poor will increase economic welfare. The motivation behind this theory according to Hume and Betham (in Singer 1975) is that the benefit received by the poor is greater than the rich will suffer. The rich and poor will value this redistribution differently – a coat given from the rich to a homeless person in Manhattan street will be much more appreciated by the poor, and that $1000 means a life for the poor and far less for people that earns $100,000. Does this necessarily increase the economic welfare? We simply cant be sure. Perhaps the rich worked so hard to afford this particular
Welfarism holds that the relevant consequences are those for individuals’ well-being, whereas sum-ranking only concerns on the sum rather than its distribution. First I would like to express my view on consequentialist – is it just to evaluate the rightness of an action only from its outcome? In some circumstances, I think intention is necessary to be morally assessed of why or how someone is doing something. An example, H&M as one of the biggest fashion retailers from Sweden has gained popularity and performed successfully in the industry. People are constantly buying their products and shareholders keep investing in H&M. There seemed to be nothing wrong with these stakeholders’ action but little they did know that doing so supported child labors employed by H&M in Myanmar. One might argue that H&M customers and shareholders were to be blamed in the scandal. Many philosophers criticize the concept of consequentialist, J.J.C. Smart 1996 supported my view by his suggestion to judge the rightness based on whether a person choose the highest expected value among other options rather than actual consequences. For sum-ranking aspect in utilitarianism, I am also quite skeptical with the practicality and would like to associate this with another example from a health aspect of utility, an Italian