Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism

Introduction

Utilitarianism is the ethical theory which states that the moral rightness of an action is justified and based only on the most useful, i.e. the greatest amount of good it produces. It is understood that the utility of an act is its ability to produce well. An act therefore morally judged only by its consequences result and taking into account the total quantity of goods produced. The good produced by a stock is the stock of all his good and bad consequences in the short and long term on all concerned. Consequently, an action is morally right because it produces more good (or avoid more harm) to more people than any other alternative action. The classical utilitarians are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1873) and Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900).

According to utilitarianism, an action is morally right or obligatory if and only if it produces more happiness than any action alternative. Thus, it is morally right or obligatory keeping promises, not to humiliate people or inflict suffering on innocent people, because these actions produce as much happiness as the respective alternatives of breaking promises, humiliate or inflict suffering. It is generally assumed to act in accordance with generally accepted standards maximizes happiness. Probably the most important development in utilitarianism is that of the rise of act utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism (hereafter referred to as Act-U and Rule-U. Act-U focuses on the utility produced by a particular action, whereas rule-U focuses on the utility produced by the general acceptance of the rule presupposed by the action.

Act-U and Rule-U

In short, both social rules and laws of any scientific theory is accepted until it is a more correct or useful. But we must keep an open mind, continually distort the premises, calculate the consequences. Scientists are invited to make new hypotheses, new checks and new proposals. By its nature as rules generated from experience, its validity is merely empirical and tentative adjusted to a certain level of experience. Consequently, its implementation depends on the circumstances (Silverstein, 2006).

The latest versions of rule utilitarianism, are somewhat closer to deontological theories. Deontologism match, in which the rules are and not the consequences that determine the correctness of the action. But they differ in the way of explaining the origin and legitimacy of the rules themselves. Therefore, the proposed rule utilitarianism the successive use of two principles, first calculate the principle of utility, ie, the utilitarian principle is used to decide which rules should apply. Therefore, different possibilities are evaluated for their suitability to the principle of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Subsequently, the rules are selected taking into consideration the consequences of each potential application in a particular society at a particular historical moment. Once the decision on what rules to use, the goodness or badness of behavior has to be evaluated for consistency with a standard and not by other criteria. Rule Utilitarianism has used examples from the legal field. Thus, the laws emanating from parliament would have to be formulated, taking into consideration the likely ...