Ethics and Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

The field of ethics in philosophy is complex, vast, and very controversial. It involves systemising, defending and reviewing concepts of right or wrong. philosophers usually divide ethics into 3 main divisions, metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Applied ethics is the branch of ethics which consists of the analysis of specific, controversial moral issues such as abortion, animal rights, or euthanasia. Normative ethics is, in the simplest form, the search for ideal rules to test proper behaviour. In relation there are several strategies used to determine the proper behaviour, one is consequentialism. According to consequentialism is that an action is determined to be right or wrong based solely on the outcome of the action; If the outcome has more positive effects than negative ones, it is believed that the action is good and vise versa. Consequentialist theories became popular in the 18th century since it was quicker to morally asses actions without dealing with gut intuitions or a long list of questionable actions. Adding to that, there are three subdivisions that emerge from consequentialism:

Ethical Egoism: an action sought to be morally right if the consequences of that action are thought to be more favorable than unfavorable only by the agent performing the action.

Ethical Altruism: an action is sought to be morally right if the consequences of that action are thought to be more favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent that is performing the action.

Utilitarianism: an action is sought to be morally right if the consequences of that action are thought to be more favorable than unfavorable to everyone including the agent performing the action.

All three theories are based off of t...

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...ies in a different way why murder is wrong. Besides taking away someone’s life it also comes down to pain, suffering and general unhappiness. Even though people might have different general beliefs most would stand by that pain is bad and pleasure is good. It is as well impartial and fair by promoting the general happiness and considering all and remaining and agent neutral theory. Furthermore it is as well it is flexible and doesn’t rely on harsh labels and rules. For example: Stealing is bad, yet in Robin hood when he stole from the rich and gave to the poor he did something favoured by most thus justifying his actions. An action is justified to be good and morally right if it benefits a greater amount of people than harming them.

It is of no doubt that any theory is perfect, but when Utilitarianism is understood well and accustomed to a situation it comes close.