Essay On Traditional Utilitarianism

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Traditional utilitarianism is a viewpoint that actions and policies are based on. This determines the benefit and cost it has on society. It requires us to look at what action will net the greatest outcome or the lowest net cost when determining what is right. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill founded this idea. They felt the best way to determine the “correct” course of action is to weigh it to ensure the benefit to everyone. This act forces us to look think of the collective instead of the individual. In order for us to determine what the right thing to do is by applying the Utilitarian Principles to every situation. We use and apply utilitarian principles to order to come up with a moral decision. We determine all actions and policies …show more content…

Let’s say there are two boats perilously close to sinking and you only have the ability to save one boat. The boat on the left has 30 passengers and is taking on water fast. The boat on the right only has 3 passengers and has sustained the same damages as the boat on the left. With utilitarian principles, we would assess the benefit and cost of this situation. The ethical approach would be for us to save the boat on the left with 30 people. We made this decision because it maximized the safety of a large amount of people versus the boat on the right with 3 passengers. However, when we add the personal approach towards utilitarianism, the decision becomes harder to make.
Utilitarianism has an attractive appeal because it matches what we follow when discussing policies and procedures for the public good. We see this daily within our own government. When elected officials discuss the diversification of federal dollars. These conversations are based off of which action provides the most benefit with the least cost. This also comes into play when deciding moral behavior. For example, if someone embezzles funds from a company, we know that it’s morally wrong to steal. We also know that this action could have damaging and long term effects to the

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