Mill Utilitarianism

In this paper, I shall defend the premises as the lives of innocent people should not be sacrificed based on a moral theory like utilitarianism where the pleasure of many outweigh the pain of one. There is however room to question if utilitarianism should be rejected as there are many forms of utilitarianism that have come about which nullifies premise one and two. To defend the premises I will explore utilitarianism as a moral theory and draw data from scholarly articles on the topic to further develop my stance.

As mill says in his ESSAY utilitarians hold that, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Utilitarianism is a moral theory that focuses on the

A utilitarian suggests however, that integrity should be forgone to make the best decision for the aggregate. It is important to note that in many articles and books the situation they are placed in while choosing between people’s lives they are forced or coerced into choosing between people’s lives. This forces the person making the choice to choose the best possible situation with the greatest possible outcome (i.e. most happiness with least pain).

Morality in utilitarianism is based upon the principle of utility wherein a moral act would be one where the total utility in the world is increased. When choosing between lives in a utilitarian sense, it does not matter when a person makes the choice to bring in most happiness in the world by saving more lives as opposed to just one. Under the framework of utilitarianism, one must make moral decisions from the position of a bystander with no personal connect to the situation. In this sense, choosing between people’s lives becomes easier to choose.

However, most people have a subjective bias to morality and using this Mill argues that all morality can be in question if we were to view the world like this. This would mean utilitarianism should not be

However, this goes against an intuitive sense of morality. Rule utilitarianism however, suggests that we must increase utility and make decisions based on the long run suggesting that the utility of the aggregate of the population should be maximized for the majority of time. So, take for instance, a society where innocent people are chosen to forcefully donate their organs is going to have a less utility than in a situation where one does not have to live in constant fear of that happening to them. Under rule utilitarianism there is strong and weak rule utilitarianism. One would think, using rule utilitarianism, the effect on people and the consequence of following that rule. Based on that, they can sometimes break the rule to increase the overall utility. This means the surgeon would not take the life of the innocent person to save five