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The lottery by Shirley Jackson utilitarianism
Consequentialism vs utilitarianism
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Recommended: The lottery by Shirley Jackson utilitarianism
“Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethics—the outcome matters, not the act. Among those who focus on outcomes, the utilitarians’ distinguishing belief is that we should pursue the greatest good for the greatest number. So, we can act in whatever way we choose—we can be generous or miserly, honest or dishonest” (Brusseau, 2012, p.107). Basically, a utilitarian person is selfish, thinks to just himself and his own personal gain, if something is good for this person, doesn’t matter if it is bad for many others.
1. The lottery is an example of the utilitarian monster in the sense that the winner of the lottery can become a utilitarian monster himself. “The utilitarian monster is a hypothetical individual who really knows how to feel good” (Brusseau, 2012, p.118). He is an individual that care more about his personal achievement than ethical factors about others.
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“Monetized utilitarianism attempts to measure happiness, to the extent possible, in terms of money” (Brusseau, 2012, p.113). In my opinion, even if does exist a definition for “monetized utilitarianism”, it doesn’t make much sense, because I don’t understand how it is possible to measure a feeling like happiness with an amount of money. So, I don’t believe that the lottery with its winners and all the money that maybe it could donate to some associations can be a positive thing with all the breach in ethics it does. Too much gambling corrupts the spirit of a person and it is not positive at
Has the lottery helped education as promised? There has been evidence in the Bible and ancient Rome texts that lotteries can be traced all the way back to Europe in the 15th century (Willmann 1). After that the lotteries made their way across the Atlantic from England to the United States.The first American lottery was established in Puerto Rico in 1934. This was followed by the New Hampshire lottery in 1964.The entire history of the lottery includes the debate over whether or not it is ethical.Lotteries are not only unethical but also ineffective ways to raise state revenues for education.
The following two paragraphs are a summary of Gloria Jimenez's essay Against the Odds and Against the Common Good. States should neither allow nor encourage state-run lotteries. There are five major arguments that people use to defend lotteries. One is that most lotteries are run honestly, but if gambling is harmful to society it is irrelevant to argue if they are honest or not. The second is that lotteries create jobs, but there are only a small handful of jobs that would be eliminated if lotteries were put out of business. Another argument that would support keeping lotteries is that, other than gambling addicts, people freely choose to buy lottery tickets. This is true, however, there are misleading advertisements that may cause people to buy tickets under false pretenses.
“Why We Keep Playing the Lottery”, by freelance journalist Adam Piore takes a very in depth look as to what drives millions of Americans to continually play the lottery when their chances of winning are virtually non-existent. He believes that because the odds of winning the lottery are so small that Americans lose the ability to conceptualize how unlikely it is that they are going to win, and therefore the risk of playing has less to do with the outcome, and more to do with hope that they are feeling when they decide to play. It 's essentially, "a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale." (Piore 700) He also states that many Americans would rather play the lottery thinking ,"boy, I could win $100 million" (705) as opposed to thinking about all of the money they could lose over time.
The problem with Utilitarianism is not that it seeks to maximize happiness. Rather, it is that Utilitarianism is so fixated on generating the most happiness that the need to take into account the morality of the individual actions that constitute the result is essentially eradicated. In so doing, the possibility of committing unethical actions in the name of promoting the general welfare is brought about, which in turn, renders Utilitarianism an inadequate ethical
...vision of the lottery and utilitarianism become clearer. The “Survival Lottery” at times creates more happiness than pain, but there are several other times when the lottery can create much more pain than happiness. Mill thinks that all actions should always intend to create more happiness than pain, but in Harris’s lottery this is not always the case. Because of this Mill is the better utilitarian in the sense that he constantly wants the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people.
In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.
“Utilitarianism is the creed which accepts as the foundations of morals utility of the greatest happiness principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” (Mil, 90). Utilitarianism ethics is based on the greatest good for the greatest number meaning that the moral agent does what he/she thinks will be
The theme in “The Lottery” is violence and cruelty. Violence and cruelty is a major theme because there is a lot of violence and cruelty in the world. The Lottery has been read as addressing such issues as the public's fascination with salacious and scandalizing journalism, McCarthyism, and the complicity of the general public in the victimization of minority groups, epitomized by the Holocaust of World War II. The Holocaust was very cruel and violent cause other people didn’t like certain people so they just kill them and their children and still now we have violence and cruelty with wars and people that hate each other.
A Utilitarian is a person that believes, if an action produces more good than harm, then that action is morally correct. Shkreli believes that if he raises the price Daraprim, Turing Pharmaceuticals will raise more profitable, and therefore is able to spend more money on research to help develop more drugs down the road. There are however, two types of Utilitarianism. There is Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism believes that any action that produces more good than harm, it is the moral thing to do. While Rule Utilitarianism believes that any action that does not breaking the law and produces more good than harm, is the moral thing to do.
Imagine this, You’re standing in line at a gas station when you overhear the cashier say to the person in front of you that there is a five-dollar card limit on the item he or she is trying to purchase, so they sigh, groan and bite their lip, pointing to the Plexiglas box next to the cashier, “I’ll take a couple lottery tickets,” He shrugs. “Those two.” And now his five-dollar limit is complete. He leaves the gas station with his items and now it is your turn. The cashier smiles a very friendly smile, the corners of your mouth twitches but you manage to smile because not only are you paying in cash to cut the cashier some slack, this cashier already knows what you’re here for. You walk out of the store with your tickets and just enough dignity
Utilitarianism is a movement in ethics which began in the late eighteenth centaury and is primarily associated with the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham and was later adapted and fully developed by John Stuart Mill in the ninetieth century. . The theory states that we should try to achieve ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. Utilitarianism is a teleological theory of ethics. Teleological theories of ethics look at the consequences to decide whether an action is right or wrong. Utilitarianism is defined as a doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of it consequences: specifically: a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible
Utilitarianism can be defined as: the right action is the one that produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarians seem to believe that humans only have two desires, or motivations: happiness and pain. They want as much happiness as possible and the least amount of pain as any other action. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, meaning that whether it is right, depends solely on its consequences.
Utilitarianism is the view of considering everyone’s benefit as equally important versus only considering my own. For any action, the morally correct thing to do is cause the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure or benefit for the greatest number possible; while at the same time causing the least amount of pain or unhappiness for the smallest number possible.
Some of us over the course of our lives, have at least purchase one a lottery ticket. We go to our nearest liquor store, we buy the lottery ticket and pray we are the chosen one. But, how often do we stop and ask ourselves, where does the money from buying a lottery ticket go? A lot of people assume it’s all for fun and games, others might say the sales of lottery tickets are put back into the community, or simply the money is kept by the state, who at the end decide what to do with that money. The fact is that, when someone buys a lottery ticket that money is collected by states lotteries, and they’re the ones who distribute the money according to state law. And if any revenue is left to spare, it goes directly into the state treasury.
When it comes to utilitarianism, the definition or what it actually is differs from one person to another depending on their situation. It all boils down to one question: “What will make the most people the most happy?” Even though it seems like an easy question to answer, the decisions you must face in answering it are not. Should you make yourself happy, or should you make others happy? Is it okay to sacrifice the happiness of a couple of people if it makes everyone else happy?