The Pros And Cons Of Utilitarianism

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Recommended: Ethics, morality, and religion

Morality, in organized religions such as the three major Abrahamic religions, and in particular Islam, operates on an imposed sense of duty in addition to exclusivity as its foundations. These precepts put together could potentially hamper someone in those faiths from making actions with a universal greater good as their proper intent. In this essay, I argue that organized religions are necessary evils which should be phased-out in favor of secularism or atheism that uses utilitarian principles since utilitarian actions are made in the pursuit of an impartial universal greater good (Mill) . Understanding what makes an action good or bad in the context of utilitarianism and religion will be instrumental in defining utilitarian atheists as true moral agents. By addressing how organized religion and utilitarianism both regard consequences and normativity, I will show that atheistic …show more content…

This is tied in with three other facets that make-up the basis of Mill’s philosophy; consequentialism, hedonism, impartiality. Consequentialism states that the morality of an action is dictated by the outcome which in an extreme sense can be interpreted as “the ends justify the means.” Hedonism is how pleasure and pain form the two polar spectrums of good and bad in an action. In another extreme, this can be taken to be pleasure is the ultimate goal of utilitarianism. Impartiality adjusts the intensity of the first two considerations and asserts that actions must not carry any personal prejudice. This can be construed as being counterintuitively neutral, or neutral to a fault. Mill addresses each of these criticisms by using the three principles to balance each other out

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