Why Is Utilitarianism Wrong
Utilitarianism is a moral theory which centers on happiness and how we can promote it, and is measured by our actions. Utilitarianism explains how human’s ultimate goal is to achieve happiness. This is also called hedonism, limiting the amount of pain and equating happiness with pleasure. This theory explains how we aim for happiness through our actions.
According to hedonism, when a person wishes to act ethically, they should strive to produce the greatest possible amount of happiness for the greatest possible amount of people. For example, if I were to make one person unhappy and one thousand others happy, this would be acceptable, because the greatest amount of people are happy in comparison to that one unhappy person. However, that only …show more content…
A “ticking bomb” comes into play when a suspect is used to obtain information to prevent a chaotic event from happening. For example, if a terrorist was to attack victims by setting a bomb planted somewhere at a mall, then the authorities may torture the suspect to obtain the information where the bomb is and how to turn it off. In any case, torturing is wrong, however, in a utilitarian viewpoint, although a torturing is wrong, mass murder would be worse, therefore less evil is more tolerable and the most. This would justify act utilitarianism. The actions of the authorities who chose to torture that suspect are maximising utility because they are saving …show more content…
This means, it does not tolerate prejudice and discrimination. This is the only positive sight of this theory. The problem with utilitarianism is that it either cannot distinguish between morally right and wrong or it does not even take moral values at all. Act utilitarianism does not know what is morally right and what it morally wrong. This situations with torturing, it’s obviously known that it is morally wrong to harm others, but torturing would be done anyways because, utilitarianism is more concerned about the greater good than considering what exactly is morally wrong. Rule utilitarianism does take morality into considerations at all because it involves deciding to follow a rule and would be difficult to determine which rule to
According to hedonism, when a person wishes to act ethically, they should strive to produce the greatest possible amount of happiness for the greatest possible amount of people. For example, if I were to make one person unhappy and one thousand others happy, this would be acceptable, because the greatest amount of people are happy in comparison to that one unhappy person. However, that only …show more content…
A “ticking bomb” comes into play when a suspect is used to obtain information to prevent a chaotic event from happening. For example, if a terrorist was to attack victims by setting a bomb planted somewhere at a mall, then the authorities may torture the suspect to obtain the information where the bomb is and how to turn it off. In any case, torturing is wrong, however, in a utilitarian viewpoint, although a torturing is wrong, mass murder would be worse, therefore less evil is more tolerable and the most. This would justify act utilitarianism. The actions of the authorities who chose to torture that suspect are maximising utility because they are saving …show more content…
This means, it does not tolerate prejudice and discrimination. This is the only positive sight of this theory. The problem with utilitarianism is that it either cannot distinguish between morally right and wrong or it does not even take moral values at all. Act utilitarianism does not know what is morally right and what it morally wrong. This situations with torturing, it’s obviously known that it is morally wrong to harm others, but torturing would be done anyways because, utilitarianism is more concerned about the greater good than considering what exactly is morally wrong. Rule utilitarianism does take morality into considerations at all because it involves deciding to follow a rule and would be difficult to determine which rule to