Pros And Cons Of Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy created by Jeremy Bentham during the enlightenment. Like his peers during this time, Bentham, attempted understand the world around him through reason and intellect which inspired him to create a moral philosophy that would mirror that sort of thought. Utilitarianism, as an ethical theory, in its simplest form is: seeking decisions that produce pleasure over pain. Bentham writes “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” (Bentham 1.1). Putting this into practice is called hedonic calculus where the ends must justify the means and it is measured in units of hedons. The idea of hedonic calculus and Utilitarianism is that when making a decision a person would …show more content…
But it can also be applied to less important decisions equally as well. Take the United States government for example. There is a massive grid-lock at the moment where almost no legislation is being passed due to party politics. However if Utilitarianism were to be applied to the government, decisions would be quite easy. Maybe take an environment policy or an economic policy, the theory would analyze the pros and cons of the decision without bias to easily come up with a solution that helps the greater good. Because isn’t that what government is for? Helping the majority of people live a happy and productive life. Which is exactly what Utilitarianism would accomplish if applied to society. Another way Utilitarianism can be productive in decision making is when the decision would conflict with other moral philosophies. Henry Sidgwick, a proponent of Utilitarianism, states that “…we require some higher principle to decide the issue…”(Sidgwick 181). The higher principle he was talking about was Utilitarianism because it solves the issue of values and rules. For instance, Deontological ethics states that one cannot do to others that they would not want everyone doing. This is idealistic, because for instance in many cases deontologically immoral acts can produce good consequences for society as a whole. For example, during World War II the British intelligence agency cracked the German encryption code called enigma. However the intelligence agency had to lie to its people and government about discovering cracking the code because word could not get out that they had solved the problem. As a result of this lie the British were able to intercept vital german intelligence which was integral to winning the war. If the intelligence agency had made a decision based on deontological ethics lying would have been declared immoral and therefore the British
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