DISCUSS & DESCRIBE UTILITARIANISM
...es. Consequentialists view actions by their results or consequences as opposed to the deontological view of morality which judges actions by principle, not result. Consequentialism requires the tallying of both the good and bad consequences of an action, then determining whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is morally acceptable. If not then it is morally unacceptable. Utilitarianism includes both the agent and everyone else for the calculation of the consequence whereas Egoism solely includes the agent and Altruism includes everyone but the agent. If the consequences between alternative decisions are minor, then a utilitarian will regard both choices as the same. If there is a significant difference then a Utilitarian should act accordingly depending on the intrinsic value of consequences. Intrinsic value is something that is good in itself and other values are derived from the intrinsic value. A major problem with Utilitarianism is with consistency. It may be effective to kill one who would otherwise kill three people. What if, however, the proposed killer was a doctor and those he were to kill were no longer useful members of society? Widespread lying and stealing would have bad consequences, resulting in lack of trust and security, it is not certain that an occasional lie to avoid embarrassment or an occasional theft from a rich man would not have good consequences, and therefore be acceptable. Therefore an act can be deemed right or wrong depending on the circumstances. Utilitarians defend this aspect by saying that if an act were to cause worldwide insecurity or lead to the illegitimacy of certain rules then it would be better to abide by those rules in order to uphold legitimacy and not to carry out the act. Rule-utilitarianism is a modification that incorporates these views. Rule-utilitarians judge the morality of an act in accordance with the best possible rule, leading to the best possible consequence. This is found to be very similar with Kant’s own moral theory and Categorical imperative in which writes “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Kant was a deontologist as apposed to a consequentialist but the Rule-Utilitarian view and Kant’s own view lead to a similar set of morals. The only real disparity would be in the phrasing, for instance ‘one ought to’ would be utilitarian whereas ‘one must’ would be Kantian. Another defined utilitarian view would be that of Act-utilitarianism, which believes solely on the consequences, produced by actions. This, however, has a large draw back in that it is almost impossible for the human mind to calculate the consequences and the value of these consequences even if given a long period of time to do this in which is unlikely. Ideal-utilitarianism denies that the sole object of moral concern is the maximising of pleasure. Moore, (1903) who himself was an Ideal-utilitarian regarded love and knowledge to be greatly valued alongside pleasure. Some philosophers believe that these values cannot be broken down any further. Therefore maximum happiness should be acquired not merely maximum pleasure. Epicurus’ belief on happiness is linked to the ideal-utilitarian view in that one must have friends and love. One has to question the gaining of knowledge leading to happiness, as the world seems to show us that the less knowledge one has, the happier one is likely to be and vice-versa. Many philosophers have long rejected negative-utilitarianism. It concentrates on minimising ‘lack of happiness’, not the maximisation of happiness. This brings about dire consequences for the theory as it may regard the killing of those who were unhappy as acceptable. It does however prevent those who were happy becoming happier in order to focus on minimising the suffering of those regarded to be suffering. Nevertheless, utilitarianism focuses on everyone, not just the few and therefore has some issues which some find disdainful. Kant disagrees with consequentialism and therefore utilitarianism on the bases that ones morality should not be required through the goal of maximising happiness as morality can only take second precedent to maximising happiness. Hence, utilitarianism cannot set a consistent morality. One could even go as far as saying that utilitarianism is a theory which holds no moral values as the proposed moral values change according to situation. Kant believed that moral thinking is thinking that something is morally right or morally wrong. As opposed to hypothetical thinking which involves thinking of a further goal in order to decide what is morally right or wrong. An example of promise keeping was put forward by Kant, which tried to expose a flaw in utilitarian theory. For Kant, this involved using the Categorical imperative. He believed that if a person was to break a promise for whatever reason, then due to the l...