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Act utilitarianism and animal rights
Animal rights are a controversial topic
Utilitarianism and animal rights essays
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Among the most glaring problems that I see with Utilitarianism is its inclusion of animals under the umbrella that blankets this theory. It seems irrefutable that there exists an inordinate number of cases where the consequence that is against the best interest of an animal is favorable to humans, yet that dictating action is one that has been continually taken and condoned by the general public. This is a fundamental challenge, as the Utilitarian philosophy decrees that the pleasure and pain experienced by all individuals, including animals, has equal worth and must be considered when determining the net benefit of an action’s consequences.
The most drastic and prevalent of examples that one could provide to illustrate this contradiction would be the practice of using animals to provide food. It cannot be argued that it is in the best interest of a cow, a chicken, or another animal to be slaughtered to serve the dietary needs of mankind. Accordingly, Utilitarian reasoning suggests, in direct opposition to the intuition of humanity, that it is morally impermissible to kill the animals. While a Utilitarian philosopher might provide the counter-argument that such is natural order of the world that there exist a hierarchical food tree. Further they would insist that the greater good is that humans be nourished and provided for by the meat, for our pleasure is superior in quality to that of the beast. This reasoning, however, is flawed in two ways. ...
In Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny’s article, “The Economics of U.S Immigration Policy,” Orrenius and Zavodny state that Americans’ are split between those who believe immigrants (legal and illegal) positively impact the economy and those who believe immigrants negatively impact the economy. Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny’s argue that the United States needs to implement an “immigration policy that addresses the concerns” about low-skill, unauthorized “immigration’s labor market and fiscal impacts” (954). The article may appeal to experts or those who have a higher interest in immigration due to the academic diction and the genre of the article, while discussing the public concerns with immigration, how immigration impacts the economy,
Bystander inaction is more influenced by the bystander’s response to other observers. The experimenters hoped to inform people of the situational forces that affect people’s behaviors in emergency situations in order to help people overcome forces that result in inaction.
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
Illegal immigrants in the United States (US) have long been a topic of debate for policymakers and the public. The rationale about them is that they do not pay taxes; they add to the costs of taxpayers and use up funds in resources meant for assisting citizens and legal immigrants (the legal citizens). Therefore, they are perceived as a threat to the US economy. The true impacts of illegal immigrants on the US economy are discussed by debating over the economic benefits as well as economic costs of these immigrants. The negative impacts, discussed first, presented the decreases in low skilled jobs’ wage rates for legal immigrants and citizens instigated by illegal immigrants, the social services such as educations and healthcare that they utilize and add to taxpayers. Then contrary to the negative impacts, the positive impacts reveal benefits of low production costs, increases in the local market sales, undocumented tax generation, impact on growth and employment brought forth by illegal immigrants. These impacts, both negative and positive, are independently analyzed and weighed against each other. The discussion does show a slight net positive impact on the US economy in contrast to the normal belief about illegal immigrants.
The long-term aim is to develop an approach to ethics that will help resolve contemporary issues regarding animals and the environment. In their classical formulations and as recently revised by animal and environmental ethicists, mainstream Kantian, utilitarian, and virtue theories have failed adequately to include either animals or the environment, or both. The result has been theoretical fragmentation and intractability, which in turn have contributed, at the practical level, to both public and private indecision, disagreement, and conflict. Immensely important are the practical issues; for instance, at the public level: the biologically unacceptable and perhaps cataclysmic current rate of species extinctions, the development or preservation of the few remaining wilderness areas, the global limitations on the sustainable distribution of the current standard of living in the developed nations, and the nonsustainability and abusiveness of today's technologically intense crop and animal farming. For individuals in their private lives, the choices include, for example: what foods to eat, what clothing to wear, modes of transportation, labor-intensive work and housing, controlling reproduction, and the distribution of basic and luxury goods. What is needed is an ethical approach that will peacefully resolve these and other quandaries, either by producing consensus or by explaining the rational and moral basis for the continuing disagreement.
The most important question of all is what should one do since the ultimate purpose of answering questions is either to satisfy curiosity or to decide which action to take. Complicated analysis is often required to answer that question. Beyond ordinary analysis, one must also have a system of values, and the correct system of values is utilitarianism.
Beginning at the age of six, I have played some type of sport year round. I was always a bigger kid growing up, weight wise and height wise and unfortunately, I inherited bad knees. Combine this with the perils if sports plus some bad luck, the saying “the bigger they are the harder they fall” was a reality for me. When I fell, I fell hard. It took a lot of pain for me to want to go to the doctor’s office. I have spent a lot of time there. I’ve had many physical therapy sessions as well. I’ve also had numerous conversations with active athletic trainers and people that were athletic trainers in the past. They all said the same thing, “I love my job.” In the 8th grade one particular therapist sparked my interest in becoming a physical therapist.
Immigration has been a controversial topic for over the past centuries. However, along with the election of a new president. the public has also created a fight to overcome the challenges the government has thrown to those undocumented immigrants. Immigration can be described as a person relocating to a new place and settling in a form of advancement. While there are benefits to having immigration, people do not always view the positive side for both parties. Native people often view immigration as a threat to their country by arguing about the lack of jobs and some illegal immigrants take advantage of receiving help from the government. However, according to the Cato Journal, immigrants both legal and illegal contribute to the growth of the economy and the creation of jobs.Regardless of being a native born citizen, any person living in the U.S mus...
The subject of illegal immigration seems to be a very hot-button topic for many Americans. The subject seems to lose public outcry on either side at any given moment, then suddenly cause tremendous tremors on our social conscious. The subject of illegal immigration has many sub-issues, but one of the most problematic is that illegal immigrants are a financial drain on the American economy.
In a study done by both Bibb Latane and John Darley, they measured the amount of time it took individuals to respond and act in a given situation based on the number of people present in the room (Bystander). They found that when individuals were in rooms by themselves and smoke filled the room, there was a 75 percent chance of the person reporting the smoke (Bystander). Whereas, when people were placed in rooms which contained other participants there was only a 38 percent chance of the people reporting the incident (Bystander). This unfortunately is not the only study which comes to a similar conclusion. A social experiment done by teenagers at a local high school shows the same thing. The students went around the school and asked their classmates and teachers if they would help a student that was found passed out in the halls (YouTube). All of those who were interviewed said yes they would. When this situation was tested, it proved the students to be liars. Over 70 (if not more) students walked over the body of the passed out girl (YouTube). Some even took pictures and laughed (YouTube). No one helped the girl because they all believed that it was not their job due to the presence of others. Looking at everyday life it is easy to see how the bystander effect can not only be applied to big situations such as the ones listed above, but also, to small ones. Such as, walking down a hall and walking by a piece if trash someone dropped. Most people (if not all) will continue walking and refuse to pick up the trash because it was not their doing. Perhaps this is a contributing factor to the fact that many people go without help in emergency
...though the researchers weren’t looking for it, he results represent ideas that can help the bystander effect in a situation. Smaller numbers increase the percentage of realization when it comes down to an emergency. The victim, if cohesive, actually plays a big role in causing the bystander effect as well. When a victim is unable to verbally communicate with bystanders, it lessens the chance of help. If a victim is capable of communicating, the help given could be more efficient. This is because it can help break the diffusion of responsibility. A victim looking a bystander directly in the eyes can even spark a quicker reaction in them. These are all ideas that psychologists still study today, and many even consider learning about this phenomenon a requirement.
I will still pursue physical therapy even after learning about all of these requirements. When I signed up for this major, I already knew the qualifications and dedication it will take to obtain this profession. There was really nothing I didn’t know before choosing this major because I really got to know the profession before I went to college. In my last few years of high school, I had to take many hours of physical therapy because of an undiagnosed leg injury, which led me to really get to know my physical therapists that worked with me and the profession itself. I am already working towards what is needed to get into graduate school by volunteering when I can and working really hard in my classes. Writing this paper has reinsured me on how I have to stay focus and really keep my eye on my dream.
As a philosophical approach, utilitarianism generally focuses on the principle of “greatest happiness”. According to the greatest happiness principle, actions that promote overall happiness and pleasure are considered as right practices. Moreover, to Mill, actions which enhance happiness are morally right, on the other hand, actions that produce undesirable and unhappy outcomes are considered as morally wrong. From this point of view we can deduct that utilitarianism assign us moral duties and variety of ways for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain to ensure “greatest happiness principle”. Despite all of moral duties and obligations, utilitarian perspective have many specific challenges that pose several serious threats which constitute variety of arguments in this essay to utilitarianism and specifically Mill answers these challenges in his work. These arguments can be determinated and analyzed as three crucial points that seriously challenges utilitarianism. The first issue can be entitled like that utilitarian idea sets too demanding conditions as to act by motive which always serves maximizing overall happiness. It creates single criterion about “being motived to maximize overall happiness” but moral rightness which are unattainable to pursue in case of the maximizing benefit principle challenges utilitarianism. Secondly, the idea which may related with the first argument but differs from the first idea about single criterion issue, utilitarianism demands people to consider and measuring everything which taking place around before people practice their actions. It leads criticism to utilitarianism since the approach sees human-beings as calculators to attain greatest happiness principle without considering cultural differ...
Bystander effect refers to the instance in which there is an emergency and people witnessing don’t respond when there are others around witnessing the same event. This happens because of pluralistic ignorance which is when people assume that there is nothing wrong because others surrounding them don’t look concerned. Two researchers, Latan and Darley, conducted an experiment to further study the bystander effect. In this experiment, Latan and Darley took multiple college students and one at a time, put them into cubicles. In a cubicle next to them there would be a recording device producing noises emulating distress noises in the form of choking. Eighty five percent of the students went to help; this is not an alarming number. The surprising
Humans place themselves at the top of the sociological tier, close to what we as individuals call our pets who have a sentimental value in our lives. Resource animal’s on the other hand have a contributory value within our lives: they provide us with meat and other important resources. In order to determine the boundaries between how we treat animals as pets and others simply as resources, utilitarians see these “resource animals” as tools. They contemplate the welfare significances of animals as well as the probable welfares for human-beings. Whereas deontologists see actions taken towards these “resources animals” as obligations regardless of whom or what they harm in the process. The objection to these theories are, whose welfare are we