Happiness Vs Consequential Happiness

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If the consequential happiness of two options can be calculated, it is morally correct to choose the highest amount of happiness. This is the fundamental idea of utilitarianism. Breaking any decision into a math problem creates little room for error when making moral decisions. However, not all decisions are that straightforward. What if maximizing happiness requires you to cause harm to others? Do the ends justify the means, or do we have a moral obligation to not cause direct harm to others, regardless of the potential benefits? Imagine a scenario where a terrorist has hidden a bomb that will kill approximately 1000 people. It is your job to locate the bomb in order to save 1000 innocent civilians. You have captured the terrorist, but you …show more content…

(Turner) Let’s look at the first option, torturing the innocent daughter, through the lens of a utilitarian. The pro of this option is saving the lives of 1000 innocent people. The con is torturing 1 innocent person. It is quite obvious that the pro far outweighs the con for this option. For example, each one of the 1000 people would rather be tortured then to die. For the second option the pro is 1 person not being tortured and the con is 1000 people dying. Being the opposite of the first option, it is clear that the con far outweighs the pro. This problem is very straightforward for a true utilitarian, because they do not take in consideration who is doing the harm. The fact that you are directly hurting someone is seen as no different than indirectly harming someone. Therefore the indirect effect on 1000 people far outweighs the direct effect on 1 person. Another reason this problem is simple for a utilitarian, is that there are only two possible options. Most moral problems have many possible choices, and the utilitarian must decide which maximizes happiness, not just which is greater. Since we are 100% certain that these are the only two options, the greater is the

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