Ralph Nader: Utilitarianism And Rejuvenation

Ralph Nader, an American political activist and author of Lebanese origin, once said “When strangers start acting like neighbors... communities are reinvigorated.” Thus is the opinion of a Utilitarian, one who believes that one should act according to whatever yields the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. According to a Utilitarian, this quote describes the essence of our obligations to strangers, or people we don’t naturally care about. It says that we must treat strangers in the same way we would treat a neighbor, family member, friend, or anybody else we care about. By treating strangers this way, it promotes and creates a universal caring for the needy and can cause communities to be rejuvenated. For this

If a fire were to arise and he could only save one, would a Utilitarian send the firetrucks to the neurosurgeon or to his child. The obvious answer most people would say is save the child since it’s your own flesh and blood in that building as opposed to a complete stranger. However, a Utilitarianst might argue otherwise, as according to Utilitarnism, one must be completely impartial and unbiased when making a decision. They believe that every individual matters equally in a situation like this and that one shouldn’t act according to his relationship towards one of the victims. Rather, as said before, Utilitarianists believe that one should act according to what will result in “the greatest good for the greatest number.” As Mill explained before, in order to determine what “the greatest number for the greatest good” is, one must expose people to both pleasures and see what is the thing that will people will prefer. In the case of the fire, since one person is a neurosurgeon and the other is just a child, most people will probably prefer that the neurosurgeon be saved as he is more crucial to the community than the child is. A neurosurgeon saves people’s lives on a daily basis and if he were to die, it can have a have a really harmful effect on the community, causing others to die as well, where it otherwise might have been prevented. If the child dies, on the other hand, it will have

Overall, Kant’s moral theory makes a lot more sense to me than Utilitarianism does. I completely disagree with Utilitarianists’ opinion that we have to be impartial and that we are just as morally obligated to care for a stranger as a friend or relative in our own family. For instance, we should certainly be more morally inclined to save our own child rather than the neurosurgeon as we naturally care about them a lot more than we do for strangers, such as the neurosurgeon. If it’s possible to save both our child and the neurosurgeon, then of course one should do his best to try and do this. However, if you have to choose between saving you child or saving a stranger, that shouldn’t even be a debate. Save your child! Anyone who would choose the neurosurgeon over their own child is not only a terrible parent, but a terrible human being in my eyes as