Mill’s Utilitarianism: Sacrifice the Innocent For The Common Good? When faced with a moral dilemma‚ utilitarianism identifies the appropriate considerations‚ but offers no realistic way to gather the necessary information to make the required calculations. This lack of information is a problem both in evaluating the welfare issues and in evaluating the consequentialist issues which utilitarianism requires be weighed when making moral decisions. Utilitarianism attempts to solve both of these
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A worm is a program than can make copies of itself from one disk drive to another. It is self contained and can also spread by copying itself using email or another form of transport. Worms can compromise the security systems of computers and can cause damage in the process. Worms sent via email usually comes in the form of a joke program or some type of software. They can cause thousands of dollars in damages. A worm would be a weapon of choice for an electronic attack that could cause widespread
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Williams finds fault in the Utilitarian commitment to maximum utility in that it undermines the integrity of moral agents and denies people the projects and relationships they inherently value. Famously known as his “Integrity Objection”‚ this proposition is immediately very enticing in that it appeals to the idea of the invaluable and imperative nature of benevolence and compassion‚ versus the cold‚ impartial hand of Utilitarianism. That is not to say‚ however‚ that Utilitarians have been dealt a hefty
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UTILITARIAN AND KANTIAN APPROACHES TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROUPS AND OUTSIDERS All of the social and political theories discussed in the previous sections agree that good leadership must be in the interests of followers. Where they disagree is on how much inequality between leaders and followers can be justified in pursuit of the common interest. Thus far we have equated the common interest with the interests of leaders and followers alone.[11] We turn now to a second main question about inequality
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give the appropriate moral weight to an agent’s personal point of view. First‚ Brink (1986: 431) denies that Utilitarianism fails to account for the individual preferences of the agent. He asserts that the Utilitarian recognises autonomy as a valuable component to be considered in Utilitarian calculus. That being so‚ he acknowledges that the principle of impartiality requires that any value to be attributed to an agent’s preference to determine their own projects must be given the same weight as
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and a valuable part of our ethical decision making. Consequentialism and just consequentialism use a similar utilitarian approach to their ethical decision making. Their utilitarian approach focusses mainly on the good of the majority. Just consequentialism adds a two-step decision-making process onto the utilitarian body of consequentialism. This extra process allows for the consideration of one’s duties and rights when making ethical decisions‚ making just consequentialism better for the majority
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factory farm animals. Gaverick Matheny’s first premise is that utilitarianism is a legitimate ethical theory. Matheny’s second premise is that utilitarianism includes non-human interests. Matheny’s third premise is that factory farms violate utilitarian beliefs. Matheny’s conclusion‚ therefore‚ is that factory farms are unethical and that “most of us should change the way we live” (13). Gaverick Matheny reaches his conclusion based on one x-factor: knowledge or the lack thereof. He tells us how
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end result of the action is. The function may not be changed or diverted according to the philosophy. It also cannot change when someone does not think about the bigger picture in perspective to the function. On the surface the logic used by utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill‚ is easy to agree with as it appears to be based on common sense. But this logic is flawed. The Principle of Utility is the core of utilitarianism. Its main point is that the "right choice results in the greatest amount
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England by Jeremy Bentham‚ John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick. The essential feature a utilitarian reside in‚ is the notion that an action is right if it produces the most amount of happiness well limiting suffering. Utilitarianism focuses solely on the consequences of the action‚ in an attempt to bring about the most happiness from each situation‚ well ensuring everybody’s happiness is equally considered. A utilitarian decides each action‚ by calculating the overall utility (good) that will results
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question.” (1993‚ p. 62). However‚ like all utilitarians‚ Singer applies the ’greatest happiness principle’ in order to begin addressing this dilemma. Utilitarian ethics dictates that we make decisions in such a way so as they result in the greatest net utility (or happiness) for the greatest number and this Singer regards as being the true only measure of good or ethical behaviour. Singer contends that there is no reason why such considerations considerations should not be extended to other animals
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