Ethical Utilitarianism and The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Because it focuses on actions, utilitarianism is an essential concept. According to utilitarianism, we should constantly act in ways that benefit everyone. Although utilitarians disagree on whether this entails pleasure or suffering reduction, utilitarianism is known for its fairness and agent-neutrality. The study’s thesis tries to suggest that ethically right behaviors provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. The arguments for and against act utilitarianism, as well as the detractors and their responses.

The paper begins with an introduction that informs us about the definition, history, and obstacles that one faces when attempting to understand the notion. Arguments in support of the act utilitarianism are discussed, followed by discussions against act utilitarianism. Lastly, a reply to the critics is given offering answers to the arguments against act utilitarianism. Utilitarians are concerned about people from other places; they don’t just concentrate on their family or related-citizens. They care about future generations as they can inform us why climate variation matters. Utilitarianism adds value to people’s lives, as the increasing movement of people willing to be useful as possible, results in making the world a better place. Therefore, it is crucial for us to understand what utilitarianism entails so that we can apply ourselves to it for the collective growth of our society.

Introduction

Utilitarianism is one of the most convincing and influential approaches to moral principles in the history of philosophy. Proto-utilitarian situations can be traced throughout the history of ethical principle though was utterly articulated in the 19th century. Utilitarianism is that morally right action that yields the best or highest utility. The theory appears to be plain as is a system of consequentialism: where the right act depends on the consequences created. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, acknowledged the good with pleasure and held that we should capitalize on the good, that is, the maximum quantity of good for the maximum number. Utilitarianism is also renowned by fairness and agent-neutrality. Everyone’s happiness amounts the same. Thus, an individual’s good amounts no more than any person’s good. Further, the motivation to uphold the overall good is the same motivation anyone else has, to defend the good. It is not unusual to me.

Utilitarianism applies one evaluative principle of the consequences that makes it look simple. However, the theory is multifaceted because we cannot be capable of appreciating that particular law unless we know at least three additional things. We need to know what are good and bad things, Whether actions or policies are the determinants, and whose good? To describe what is good, Jeremy Bentham adopted an outlook named hedonism which indicates that, pleasure or happiness is the only good thing (Bruno 300). Hedonist does not refute that many diverse kinds of things can be good, together with friends, food, freedom and many others, but hedonists consider goods that are valued because they play a casual role in creating pleasure or happiness. Pleasure and happiness are good although they do not yield some additional valuable things. Similarly, on the contrary side, lack of friends, food, or freedom is terrible because it generates pain, suffering, and unhappiness. Therefore, pain, sadness, and suffering are evil in themselves and not because they produce some further bad things. Hedonism principle is rejected by many thinkers because much important good is not feelings. Being healthy, honest or being intelligent are thought by some people to be good and are not type of emotions. In this paper, we will use the wellbeing to identify what utilitarians consider as valuable in itself.

Utilitarians seek to define whose well-being, when individuals are determining on what to do for themselves alone, they deliberate on their utility. For a group, people ought not only to think through their interest but the interest of the others in the team. The useful technique obliges you to reckon everyone’s interests equally. According to Alsegier (26), Utilitarians differ whether verdicts of right and wrong should be as a result of specific consequences of actions or their predictable consequences. The matter arises when the real effects of actions vary from what we anticipated. ] For example, to rescue a drowning person is the correct thing to do and people applause such an act, but If the saved person turns out to be Adolf Hitler, assessing the rescuer’s action founded on its actual consequence, then he did a wrong thing. If, however, utilitarians evaluate the rescuer’s work by its likely outcome - as he could not foresee the disadvantages of saving the person from sinking- he did the right thing.

There are two opinions that we need to contrast; one states that to act rightly is to do whatever yields the best consequence. The second requires the person undertaking the action to produce the highest level of utility. The expected utility is a combination of the likelihood of the effects happening and that one predict will result from an action. For the rescuer situation, the expected positive utility is high as the likelihood that saving a drowning person will result in the death of millions of other people is low. Thus both actual and foreseeable consequence utilitarian differs in views about the nature of the utilitarian theory as cited in (Posner 120).Some arguments in support of act utilitarianism suggest that it maximizes utility and that act utilitarianism is better than rule-based moralities.

If all our actions yield more utility than any other available to us, then the total utility will result in the highest probable level of utility that we could get. It is within our power to maximize the utility of individual action that we accomplish. If one selects activities that produce less efficiency than is probable, then our efforts total ability will result in less amount of good than we could have created. For that reason, act utilitarian suggests that we should apply the utilitarian principle to individual acts and not to classes of similar actions.

The rule-based moralities mostly consist of collections of regulations concerning the type of actions. The biblical Ten Commandments, for example, focuses on the kinds of activities, reminding us not to steal, kill, bear false witness, or covet. Both philosophical and customary ethical codes often consist of absolute rules. Immanuel Kant, a prominent philosopher, view lying as always wrong, even in situations where it might save a life. For example, if A is trying to kill B and A asks you the whereabouts of B, it will be wrong for you to deliberately lie to A even if you want to save B. According to Hollander (570), act utilitarianly differs from the rule-based moralities that classify the whole group of actions as right or wrong. They argue that effects of actions vary when done in different circumstance and ethics must be thoughtful to the likely consequences of individual actions. If by violating a rule we attain more wellbeing then there is no reason to observe it.

Some arguments against act utilitarianism suggest that it gives wrong answers and does not propagate trust among individuals. Act utilitarianism gives wrong answers to moral questions (Gaus 95). Critics argue that it authorizes various actions that are perceived by everyone to be morally wrong. For example, if a doctor saves five people from death by killing one healthy person and using that person’s organ for life-saving transplants, then act utilitarianism suggests that the doctor should murder the one person. Since the judgment from the act utilitarianism conflicts with the profoundly held beliefs. Then it is evidently morally wrong. Thus it is a false theory.

Although traditional moral rules are too rigid, critics believe that the rigidity between people is the center of trust. Utilitarian overlook this part as the basis of faith among people. Moreover, if everyone assumed that morality legitimizes cheating, promise-breaking and dishonesty then no one could trust other people to conform to these rules. As a result, in a utilitarian act society, we do not expect them to keep promises, not believe what others say, and in-broad not count people to act in consensus with essential moral rules. Thus, people’s conduct would not exhibit the kind of predictability and uniformity that are a necessity to sustain social stability and trust.

According to research done by (McGee 70), there are two possible ways in which the act utilitarian guard their opinions in contrast to this criticism. First, they charge critics with misinterpretation of act utilitarianism and misguidedly claim that it is supportive of the wrong answers to numerous moral questions. They approve that the “wrong answers” are honestly mistaken, but denies if they maximize utility. For the reason that, they fail to optimize efficiency, these wrong answers would not be reinforced by act utilitarians, consequently, do nothing to dwindle their theory.

Second, act utilitarians can agree with the critics that it supports the critics’ label ”wrong answers”. They may show that the opinions supported by act utilitarian battle with universal wisdom morality. Since the critics cannot verify that common wisdom moral beliefs are accurate, then their critics are baseless. Act utilitarians enjoy the fact that their theory offers good reasons to discard numerous ordinary moral claims and to substitute them with moral views centered on the effects of actions.

Works Cited

Alsegier, Riyadh A. ”Roboethics: Sharing our world with humanlike robots.“ IEEE Potentials 35.1 (2016): pp. 24-28.

Bruno, Jonathan R. ”Vigilance and Confidence: Jeremy Bentham, Publicity, and the Dialectic of Political Trust and Distrust.“ American Political Science Review 111.2 (2017): pp. 295-307.

Gaus, Gerald, and Shaun Nichols. ”Moral learning in the open society: the theory and practice of natural liberty.” Social Philosophy and Policy 34.1 (2017): pp. 79-101.

Hollander, Samuel. ”Ethical Utilitarianism and The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Adam Smith in Relation to Hume and Bentham.“ Eastern Economic Journal 42.4 (2016): pp. 557-580.

McGee, Robert W. ”Analyzing insider trading from the perspectives of utilitarian ethics and rights theory.“ Journal of Business Ethics 91.1 (2010): pp. 65-82.

Posner, Richard A. ”Utilitarianism, economics, and legal theory.“ The Journal of Legal Studies 8.1 (1979): pp. 103-140.