Utilitarianism (pronounced yoo-TILL-ih-TARE-ee-en-ism) is one of the main schools of thought in modern ethics (also known as moral philosophy). Utilitarianism holds that what’s ethical (or moral) is whatever maximizes total happiness while minimizing total pain.
Oct 24, 2017 - Act utilitarianism is essentially Bentham's original formulation: at any time, perform the action which will result in the best consequences.
The word total is important here: if you act ethically according to utilitarianism, you’re not maximizing your happiness, but the total happiness of the whole human race.The main idea of utilitarian ethics is: secure the greatest good for the greatest number. Example: the Trolley ProblemImagine there is a trolley heading toward a group of 5 workers on the tracks. You are sitting in a control center several miles away, and you have a button that can switch the trolley onto another track where there’s only 1 worker. If you flip the switch, one person will die. If you do nothing, 5 people will die.
Should you flip the switch?In surveys, most people in America and Britain say yes. 1 death is better than 5 deaths, so if you have to choose, you should try to minimize the loss of life by flipping the switch. This is an example of utilitarian reasoning, and the survey results show that this school of thought is popular in British and American culture. (In other cultures, people think about the problem differently.)II.
Types of UtilitarianismThere are basically two branches of utilitarianism. They both agree that the goal of ethics is to maximize happiness. But they disagree on where that decision should be applied:. Act Utilitarianism argues that we should always choose our actions based on what will cause the greatest amount of happiness.
Rule Utilitarianism argues that we should figure out what sort of behavior usually causes happiness, and turn it into a set of rules.Example:Take the example of a judge sending a murderer to prison. Say the judge knows the convict will not commit any more violent crimes, and wants to be lenient based on this (maybe the convict is very old or terminally ill). The judge knows that this will make the convict very happy, not to mention their family and friends. Imagine that the victim’s family has forgiven the convict and will not feel pain as a result of this decision.Should the judge let the convict go?
Act utilitarinism says yes, because this maximizes happiness while causing no future pain in this case. But rule utilitarianism says no, because in general convicts must be punished for their crimes, even if there is no chance that they will commit future crimes. The judge should follow the rules, according to this, even if in this particular case the rule isn’t necessary.III. Utilitarianism vs.
Deontology vs. Virtue EthicsUtilitarianism is the most common kind of, which is one of the three major branches of ethics.