created the utilitarianism school of thought‚ which is an incredibly useful ethical position. It can be most effectively defined by Wikipedia‚ "Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility." Utilitarianism has many benefits‚ but those benefits are harmonized with some major flaws. I will discuss the founding fathers of utilitarianism‚ the strengths and weaknesses of act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism‚ other forms
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Is it possible for human beings to act from an apathetically objective point of view? People often attempt to create distance from their subjectivity to achieve goals within the world‚ but they cannot achieve true objectiveness. Engineers‚ natural scientists‚ judges and researchers all put aside their own biases to a degree in order to accomplish their fields‚ however they are not and cannot be entirely objective. Scientists—being the most publicly perceived objective figure—have human biases defined
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oversight responsibility for the project and has hired Client/Servers R Us to develop the architecture for the new corporate information system. Joe Consultant of C/S R Us presented 3 client/server designs to the CIO and is requesting the CIO to select one. The CIO is not sure which middleware design is best for the company’s goals. The CIO has asked Chris Consultant to present the advantages and disadvantages for each of the alternatives. Background ACME Financial Incorporated (AF Inc.) is an investment
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Act Utilitarianism is the treatment of each type of moral situation as a unique situation‚ therefore bring the maximum amount of happiness to everyone that is affected by the act. The agent in these types of situations must determine what is the right things that should be done for this exact situation in present time. The agent must not be bogged down by past experiences‚ as that will affect the judgment of what to do in this particular situation. While this type of utilitarianism is good in a variety
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There are many answers from many different sources for what “the good” actually is. I will be discussing a few theories that I feel have some key concepts which point to what the good ultimately is: egoism‚ utilitarianism‚ and deontology. Egoism values the desires of the individual the most‚ and this is most important to the individual. Utilitarianism‚ on the other hand‚ needs to be impartial in order to value each individual’s happiness equally. Deontology also conflicts with both of these other
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chosen Act-Utilitarianism to analyze in this paper. My assertion is that Act-Utilitarianism is not a viable solution to the problem of punishment. I believe this because Act-Utilitarianism‚ while attempting to maximize overall utility‚ often leads to situations where the wrong answers are given to moral questions. This results in Act-Utilitarianism finding justification for punishment in bad moral theories‚ thus invalidating any justification given. While I do not believe that Act-Utilitarianism is an
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The prominant criticism of Utilitarianism is that it is extremely hard to predict the results of an action. The outcomes of all situations are hard to predict‚ so how can we possibly apply the rule of the greatest happiness for the greatest number if we do not know who will benefit most? It is also difficult to decide whether an outcome is morally good or bad. People have contrasting opinions on what they think is right or wrong and it depends on the individual who is making the decision. This causes
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Consequentialists are a group of philosophers who asses whether an act is right or wrong based on the consequences of the action. There are different types of consequentialism including: ethical egoism‚ act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. These three branches of consequentialism will be discussed later in this paper. A supererogatory act is something that is good but is not obligatory; these acts involve rendering aid to others that go above moral requirement. Consequentialists claim that
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a philosopher suggest that people should abandon utilitarianism without even giving them a convincing point about why‚ except that utilitarianism does not support vegetarianism in fact Singer says that utilitarianism have a great relationship with vegetarianism. Utilitarianism is considered to be a moral philosophy that bases it argument that we have moral obligation to utilize and maximize the available utility in the world. Utility is earned from things that people can easily be accessed like food
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...conservative commentator Philip Oppenheim...argued recently that in Britain‚ it’s supermarkets that profit most from fair trade sales. They charge a premium for fair trade bananas‚ for example‚ while a "minuscule sliver ends up with the people the movement is designed to help"... Here is more. In case you don’t know‚ fair trade sells a product at a premium price‚ under the promise that the workers are treated better and paid more. But will that improve living standards? Hmm...this sounds
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