Utilitarianism As The Principle Of Happiness Philosophy Essay

Utilitarianism As The Principle Of Happiness Philosophy demonstrateAccording to John Stuart Mill (author of Utilitarianism), utility is delight, and ecstasy is plea real subtr doing pain. Widely known as a universal hedonism, utilitarianism is an ethical school of thought in which the to the highest degree ethical acts be those which serve to increase the happiness for the more or little people or at the very least, decreases the suffering for the most people. Nvirtuosotheless, albeit with the fact that happiness is recognized as a universal though objectively valuable goal , utilitarianism has been for centuries recognized as the doubt of most lesson philosophers, criticized for organism impractical, cold and distant from individual rights and the real complexities of life. Bernard Williams is one of the critics, who brought about explicit series of objections against utilitarianism in his book, A Critique of Utilitarianism (Williams 1973b). Obviously, it is out of the qu estion for me to cover all argonas concerning utilitarianism and so concentrating on morality objections, I resulting first of all attempt to present Bernard Williams law objection and the easily known counter-examples against utilitarianism. Then, I pass on try to counter these objections, and rebutted Williams descent with understructure objections as well, with Mills Utilitarianism as my course credit. At the end of this essay, I take to to show that utilitarianism is indeed right, and likewise, moral intuitions ar without a doubt fallible to be used as a base in criticising utilitarianism.From what I fire understand, Williams believes that utilitarianism fails to recognise the reality of complexities in life, the value of integrity, and as I mentioned earlier, individual rights. Morality comes with the recognition of individual rights and if decisions or judgments argon make base on numerical value of the greatest physical body of happiness in a situation, the happ iness of this lesser number group is ignored. Hence, integrity failed to be satisfied. In order to maximize the number of happiness, simply opt the largest number of members in a group and this irked the mind of Williams.Moreover, according to Williams, a normal utilitarian man wouldnt be able to fulfil the demanding tight principle of utilitarianism. It is driveing too much of an individual person and so because of that the hypothesis must be flawed. From experience itself we can be sure that morality indeed, does non require so much of us. Yet, the latter argument of Williams can free be argued as it is not that the theory is demanding, it is righteous that people dont want to fulfil their moral obligations, and that we just dont like being told to do what we dont want to do. After all, a moral theory that wouldnt ask us to do what we dont want to do would be useless.Critics of utilitarianism have n perpetually fail to construct vatic situations where in to each one of th em is the definite reform expectation of what the utilitarian would say, and it is also clear that the saying of the utilitarian would of all time be potentially wrong in almost all hypothetical cases. These counter-examples against utilitarianism do not conclusively show that utilitarianism is wrong, but indeed they are common designers why people are rejecting it. And so because of that, I will present two such common counter-examples and the expected utilitarian receipt for these counter examples.First Counter-ExampleHypothetically speaking, there would be a boob tube show of the future, a show where a person is taken and subjected to single-foots on the show. This is a pay-per-view show that costs a good amount of property to get. Only people who want to put one over the show will ever see it, but there are a large number of people who get a great amount of pleasure from eyesight this plus all the profits go to charity. This isnt a regular program, it may only happen o nce. Should this show be do?Speaking in a utilitarian manner, it is indeed right to give a jet light to this show as even though, it is really sad and swingeing for this one person, it is however, brings a lot of happiness and pleasure to those who will see it (obviously thousands of watchers). Moreover, all the profits will go to the charity thus benefited a lot more people Clearly, the benefits outweigh the harms. But obviously, it is indeed still wrong to torture people. This could indeed be the main argument of the opponents. regardless of the benefits, it is still a violation of that tortured mans rights. Furthermore, to enjoy watching the torture could indeed be more chastely wrong than to be physically implicated in the show.Second Counter-ExampleJim, a botanist travelling in South America, comes upon a public execution in a undersized town. A military professional has lined up 20 Indians. He explains to Jim that they have been chosen at random from the local populati on, which has recently been protesting against the government. The captain offers Jim a guests privilege. If Jim wishes, he can select one of the Indians and shoot him the otherwise nineteen will then go free. Otherwise, the execution by the captains henchman, Pedro, will go as planned.Utilitarianism seems to claim that it is obvious that the right subject to do is for Jim to just select one of these Indians to be shot at, so that some other 20 lives could be spared. To not choose, or refusing to choose could lead to lugubriousness of 20 persons, whereas to choose could only cause unhappiness of one. And so as we are referring to the theory of maximizing utility, to endure one is better than to lose 20. However, the objector will claim that it is just obvious that this is the wrong thing to do. Killing a persons life is still wrong for whatever the motive is.From what that I can deduce, the two counter-examples have one thing in common that is our adept of Morality or our mo ral intuitions clashes with the principles that utilitarianism hold. Indeed, opposite commands. Nevertheless, it does not mean that utilitarianism must be wrong or flawed.First of all, the arguments made by these counter-examples can only be conclusive if only our moral intuitions are correct. However, as we all know, our moral intuitions are volatile imputable to the complexities of life and due to the significant numbers of gray areas that could result in confusion, according to Mill, that is why we refer to moral theories in the first place. Since it is undecipherable to us of the universal approval for moral intuitions, the critics cannot use their moral intuitions as the base for rejecting a moral theory which is in this case, the moral theory of utilitarianism. Indeed, of course, for example, thieving is a disgrace yet to think of it now, maybe our other supposed to be right moral beliefs might be wrong. Yet, is stealing really wrong? What about Robin Hood? Is he a hero or j ust a plain mere highwayman? The point that Im trying to state here is that we dont really know which are right and which are wrong. Our moral beliefs are inconsistent. Some may perceive certain things are right. Some may not. And so, we cannot know that our common sense moral intuitions about The Torture Show or Jim and The 21 Indians are right mainly because we dont really know which of our moral beliefs to trust.Second of all, the counter-examples are based on complicated moral situations and truth to be told, sloped as have they are design in such a way that the morally right answer seem obvious. In reference to Jim and the 21 Indians, let me re-describe the situation to highlight the utilitarian benefit. Indeed, it is hard to condone how terrible the consequences would be if 20 Indians are to be killed, when Jim has the power to block that. We must acknowledge the fact that, yes, although it is easy to sympathize with one exculpatory unfortunate person, we must also sympa thize with the other 20 people, each of whom will suffer greatly if they are to be killed.In this case, the morally right action is not obvious.The situations presented are almost always queer and extraordinary they are situations that one is unlikely to come across, much less to be prepared for when one does come across it. And so conclusively, we based our moral intuitions on our moral educations. Moral education is applicable to our insouciant lives and if it was to be applied in aggravating counter-examples and in every contingent situation, it is indeed impossible. And so because of that, moral intuitions are not valid and whatever objections based on them are flawed and can be disregarded. Conclusively, these could in some way rebut the arguments made by William on the basis of integrity and morality.Conclusively, we can actually deduce that things that are morally wrong usually involve the harming of people and things that are of high moral values such as charity work, heroic deeds all contribute to the welfare of the people. Moreover, it is not a coincidence that wrong actions harm people and right action help people.Indeed, utilitarianism claimed that the reason that right actions are right is that they help people, and the reason that wrong actions are wrong is because they harm people. The basis of morality is at heart the principle of utilitarianism. You make people happy when you help them and you make them sad when you harm them. And so, conclusively, as long as a person unsays that it is best to help people as much as possible and hurt them as little as possible, he or she must accept that utilitarianism is rightWorks Cited/ReferencesCrisp, Roger 1997 Routledge Philosophy Guide Book to Mill on Utilitarianism.E. Goodin, Robert 1995 Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy.Mill, John Stuart (Reprinted in Penguin Classics 1985, first print in 1859) On Liberty.Would you kill someone to save one atomic number 6 people? CreateDebate. Retrieve d on 15th November 2009, from http//www.createdebate.com/debate/show/ould_you_kill_ someone_to_save_one_hundred_peopleUtilitarianism Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. Retrieved on 12th November 2009 from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UtilitarianismBernard Williams Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. Retrieved on 12th November 2009 from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_WilliamsIntroduction to utilitarianism. Retrieved on sixteenth November 2009 from http//www.utilitarian.org/utility.htmlUtilitarianism by John Stuart Mill Retrieved on 18th November 2009 from http//www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm