In the past decade, downloading copyrighted content from the internet without permission from the copyright owner has become increasingly common and convenient. In the following paper, I’ll discuss the morality of doing this, from a utilitarian perspective. I argue that despite my personal beliefs, when viewed from a utilitarian point of view, no consistent conclusions can be made about the morality of illegally downloading copyrighted material. A utilitarian can be defined as someone who believes that the ethical choice is the one which results in the best net outcome. That is, the choice whose consequences, considering everyone who has a vested interest, are better than all other choices. Utilitarianism can be divided into several subcategories. …show more content…
Act utilitarians consider all the consequences of a specific action, and they argue that the act that results in the greatest net ‘good’ is the moral choice. Rule utilitarians believe that there are rules which, if followed by everyone would increase good outcomes. In this belief system, sometimes a particular act could have the best possible consequences in a situation, but it may not be the moral choice if it involves breaking a rule. Rule utilitarians would argue that if everyone broke the rule, the overall outcome would be worse. Therefore, even if breaking the rule would have better consequences in one instance, it is still better to follow the rule, for the greatest net good. Considering the case at hand, an act utilitarian might argue that downloading copyrighted material illegally is morally sound. When someone downloads a song for free off the internet, their happiness would likely increase, while the artist and record company, who are making outrageous money anyway, would likely never know the difference. Therefore, downloading the music for free would actually have the best consequences and be the right …show more content…
I don’t believe that we would live to see the potential bad outcomes that rule utilitarians argue would result from breaking the copyright rules. However, I agree with the logic that when you argue what is right or wrong, you are arguing what is the right or wrong choice that everyone should make, because you are really arguing for people to support your position. Therefore, you have to consider the consequences of what would happen if hypothetically, everyone did take your position. And when you do this, the rule argument clearly results in the best
Rule utilitarianism must find a balance between rules and utility to try and maximize human flourishing. Williams and Harwood both critique utilitarianism, but an ideal rule utilitarianism is able to satisfy any critique posed. An ideal rule utilitarianism would be able to avoid the problem of rule worship while still allowing the rules to carry sufficient meaning. Rule utilitarianism should refine rules to become more specific, which will hopefully lead to the ideal form of rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism is able to respond to the criticisms proposed by Williams and Harwood by making more specific rules that will coincide with the greatest happiness
In Charles W. Moore’s essay, “Is Music Piracy Stealing?” Moore uses great statistics of the people who are concerned and not concerned about music piracy. He gives many examples of the facts he has researched and gives an ethical appeal to his audience. “This week the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched an ad campaign using the slogan ‘copying is stealing,’ attempting to convey the message that digital copying is as serious and criminal as stealing a CD from a record shop or a DVD from a video shop” (Moore 242). However, throughout Moore’s entire essay he has a weak introduction and conclusion paragraph, repetitive examples, examples that do not apply to his topic and he uses many logical
Another advantage Rule-Utilitarianism holds over Act-Utilitarianism is that it doesn’t throw past obligations for the sake of increasing total well-being, nor does it sacrifice one’s happiness over another’s like Act-Utilitarianism does. Rule-Utilitarianism allows certain freedoms in moral convictions that would allow us to fully appreciate life, whilst continuing to live a moral life when faced with ethical dilemmas. For example, a Rule-Utilitarian can think that if everyone was to indulge in killing each other whenever given offence, then total well-being would decrease exponentially. Hence, murder is immoral for the Rule-Utilitarian. In contrast, the Act-Utilitarian would permit murder, or even his or her own death if it increased total
With the sum of net utility from each constituent in the illegal file sharing controversy being a positive value, a utilitarian would argue that the verdict is clear: illegal file sharing is morally correct and should be allowed to exist on the grounds that it maximizes utility for the largest sum of people possible. However, this conclusion raises an important question. Should the pleasure of the many justify infringing on the rights of the few? After all, music piracy is stealing property from the artists who created the music. Even though the utilitarian argues that these rights must be sacrificed for the greater good, there seems to be something intrinsically and morally wrong with this statement. Which makes one question what is more important, individual rights or the overall happiness of the society?
Although both an act-utilitarian and a rule-utilitarian, both defend the utilitarianism main claim of us doing “what is optimific. [Meaning] we must maximize overall well-being,” (FE, 138). The main claim of each form is different.
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.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that approaches moral questions of right and wrong by considering the actual consequences of a variety of possible actions. These consequences are generally those that either positively or negatively affect other living beings. If there are both good and bad actual consequences of a particular action, the moral individual must weigh the good against the bad and go with the action that will produce the most good for the most amount of people. If the individual finds that there are only bad consequences, then she must go with the behavior that causes the least amount of bad consequences to the least amount of people. There are many different methods for calculating the utility of each moral decision and coming up with the best
Utilitarianism is a theory aimed at defining one simple basis that can be applied when making any ethical decision. It is based on a human’s natural instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
There are many essays, papers and books written on the concept of right and wrong. Philosophers have theorized about moral actions for eons, one such philosopher is John Stuart Mill. In his book Utilitarianism he tries to improve on the theories of utilitarianism from previous philosophers, as he is a strong believer himself in the theory. In Mill's book he presents the ideology that there is another branch on the utilitarian tree. This branch being called rule-utilitarianism. Mill makes a distinction between two different types of utilitarianism; act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. Rule-utilitarianism seems like a major advance over the simple theory of act-utilitarianism. But for all its added complexity, it may not actually be a significant improvement. This is proven when looking at the flaws in act-utilitarianism and relating them to the ways in which rule-utilitarianism tries to overcome them. As well one must look at the obstacles that rule-utilitarianism has on it's own as a theory. The problems of both act and rule utilitarianism consist of being too permissive and being able to justify any crime, not being able to predict the outcomes of one's actions, non-universality and the lose of freewill.
...ough its own capacity as a theory of both decision making and moral judgement, and by default- as act-utilitarianism has been proved too demanding and often immoral by our common sense intuition- I conclude that rule-utilitarianism is indeed preferable to act-utilitarianism.
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.
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...
Utilitarianism is defined to be “the view that right actions are those that result in the most beneficial balance of good over bad consequences for everyone involved” (Vaughn 64). In other words, for a utilitarian,
With the popularity of the Internet, sales for CDs, DVDs, Movies, and many other products have increased. Along with the increase of sales has brought forth an ever increasing problem of illegal media being downloaded. Programs such as Bittorent, Kazaa, and other direct-connect networking programs have allowed the transferring of such illegal media. Downloading song files from the Internet over a free peer to peer network is the moral equivalent of shoplifting music CDs from the local mall.
Knorr, Caroline, “Illegal Downloads: When Sharing Becomes Stealing” (November 19, 2010) https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/illegal-downloads-when-sharing-becomes-stealing (March 31, 2014)