Utilitarian Theories |
Explain philosopher/philosophy in historical context |
Give Example |
Jeremy Bentham | Jeremy Bentham is Known for the philosophy of moral. His perspective evaluates actions in regards to their consequences ( Piacquadio, 2017) . | Motivation and value come from either happiness or pleasure. Success and family can motivate an individual. |
John Stuart Mills | Mills argues that the achievement of people’s goals and ends like virtuous living should be considered as part of happiness. | A good example is completing school and getting to graduate which can be termed as happiness. |
Rule Utilitarianism |
Rule utilitarianism looks at the correctness of an act by use of a different method. The initial rule is finding the value as a consequence of a particular practice. | An example is when a hospital may decide to get rid of organs from a patient and save other three patients. This rule does not permit such a circumstance (Alon & Lehrer, 2017). |
Act Utilitarianism |
This theory says that actions ought to be judged on their level as they are observed on their capability of bringing happiness. | An example is looking for grocery for a starving family to avoid the suffering. |
Pros and Cons of utilitarianism
The advantages are: Utilitarianism does not rely on the beliefs concerning God. This theory is in line with people that intuitions that harm people are intrinsically wrong. The third advantage of this theory is that it conquers that the right way of doing something is the one that brings about a lot of happiness. This theory as much as it has some pros, it carries with it some cons. One of them is that it is subjective. This s because people have different ways of happiness, but the theory may stick to one kind of happiness. ‘happiness’ as defined by this theory is not the only thing that is worth regarding intrinsic feelings. There is also love, freedom or human life (Alon & Lehrer, 2017). This theory is also unpredictable. The theory is based on ethical choices whereas the future is not known.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
References
Alon, S., & Lehrer, E. (2017). Subjective Utilitarianism: Decisions in a social context.
Piacquadio, P. G. (2017). A fairness justification of utilitarianism. Econometrica , 85 (4),
1261-1276.