Utilitarianism- the doctrine that an action is
right insofar as it promotes happiness,.. and
that the greatest happiness of the greatest
number should be the guiding principle of
conduct.
Utilitarianism is a theory of morality that
advocates actions that foster happiness or
pleasure and oppose actions that cause
unhappiness or harm. When directed toward
making social, economic, or political decisions, a
utilitarian philosophy would aim for the
betterment of society as a whole.
In other words.. your action is considered
ethical or moral if it will benefit the greatest
number of people regardless of your intent or
motive.
Here you should look at the consequence or
outcome of your actions.. if it’s for the welfare
of majority ..then your action is ethical.
To illustrate the concept of utilitarianism, lets
make use of familiar dc characters.. Batman and
Joker.
Regardless of what joker does, there are some
lines that good people do not cross, and for
batman, killing definitely falls on the wrong side
of that line.. Reality check- Joker is never gonna
stop killing and of course, Batman will have him
thrown back in arkham but we all know that
he’s gonna get out- He always gets out. And
once he is free, he will kill again. And when he
does , won’t a little bit of that be Batman’s
fault? Batman has been in a position to kill the
Joker hundreds of times. He has had the power
to save everyone from ever being a victim of
the joker again.
If you have the ability to stop a killer, and you
don’t, are you morally pure because you didn’t
kill? Or are you morally dirty because you
refused to do what needs to be done?
The school of thought laid by emmanual kantnow known as Kantianism- is pretty straight
forward. More precisely; Its absolute.
Kantianism is all about sticking to the moral
rulebook. There are never exceptions or
excuses for violating moral rules and our man
Batman tries his hard to stick to his code no
matter what. But there are other ways of
looking at ethics. Like instead of focusing on the
intent behind our behavior, what if we paid
more attention to the consequences. One moral
theory that does this is utilitarianism- It focuses
on the results and consequences of our actions
and treats intention as irrelevant.
Good consequences equals good actions in this
view.
Actions should be measured in terms of
happiness or pleasure, that they produce. After
all happiness is our final end- it’s what we do
everything else for.
We should act always so as to produce the
greatest good for the greatest number. This is
known as the principle of utility.
Scenario- 20th century British philosopher
Bernard Williams offered this thought
experiment.
Jim is on a botanical expedition in South
America when he happens a group of 20
indigenous people, and a group of soldiers. The
whole group of indigenous people is about to
be executed for protesting their oppressive
regime. For some reason, the leader of the
soldiers offers Jim a chance to shoot one of the
prisoners, since he’s a guest in their land. He
says that if Jim shoots one of the prisoners, he’ll
let the other 19 go. But if Jim refuses,the
soldiers will shoot all 20 protesters.
The theory clearly demands that Jim shoot one
man so that 19 will be saved. But William
argues that no moral theory ought to demand
the taking of an innocent life. William further
argues that it’s not Jims fault that the head
soldier is a total dirt bag and Jim shouldn’t have
to get literal blood on his hands to try and
rectify the situation.
Utilitarianism says, we live in a world where
sometimes people do terrible things. And if we
are the ones who happen to be there, and we
can do something to make things better, we
must. Even if that means getting our hands
dirty.
And if I sit by and watch something bad happen
when I could have prevented it, My hand are
dirty anyway.
So Jim should not think about it as killing one
man.That man was dead already, because they
were all about to be killed. Instead, Jim should
think of his decision as doing what it takes to
save 19 people.
Act Utillitarianism- In any given situation, you
should choose the action that produces the
greatest good for the greatest number.
Regardless of the nature of the intent.
Rule utilitarianism- This version of the theory
says that we ought to live by the rules that in
general are likely to lead to the greatest good
for the greatest number.Rule utilitarianism
wants us to think long term and on a larger
scale. So here we have to follow rules that will
maximize utility for the majority of the time.
Deontology- defined as an ethical theory that
the morality of an action should be based on
whether that action itself is right or wrong
under a series of rules, rather than based on the
consequences of the action.
Morality is determined by the act itself. the
rightness of an action depends not on its
consequences but on whether it accords with a
moral rule, one that can be willed to be a
universal law.
Deontological
(duty-based)
ethics
are
concerned with what people do, not with the
consequences of their actions. Do the right
thing. Do it because it's the right thing to do.
Don't do wrong things. Avoid them because
they are wrong.
Accordingly, deontological ethics holds that it
may be our duty to refrain from performing
certain actions (like killing and stealing)
irrespective of what the consequences of doing
so will be – it is, for instance, typically morally
prohibited to actively and deliberately kill
someone even when this is the only way to ...
The appeal of deontology lies in its consistency.
By applying ethical duties to all people in all
situations the theory is readily applied to most
practical situations. By focussing on a person’s
intentions, it also places ethics entirely within
our control – we can’t always control or
predict the outcomes of our actions, but we
are in complete control of our intentions.
Others criticise deontology for being inflexible –
by ignoring what is at stake in terms of
consequences, some say it misses a serious
element of ethical decision-making. Deemphasising
consequences
has
other
implications too – can it make us guilty of
‘crimes of omission’? Kant, for example, argued
it would be unethical to lie about the location
of our friend, even to a person trying to
murder them! For many, this seems intuitively
false.
Or in case of self defense..pag napatay mo yung
aggressor for defending yourself will your action
be considered immoral or unethical?
One way of resolving this problem is through an
idea called threshold deontology, which argues
we should always obey the rules unless in an
emergency situation, at which point we should
revert to a consequentialist approach.
SUMMARY:
1.Utilitarianism and deontology are two known
ethical systems.
2.Utilitarianism revolves around the concept of
“the end justifies the means,” while deontology
works on the concept “the end does not justify
the means.”
Deontological ethics is an ethics system that
judges whether an action is right or wrong
based on a moral code. Consequences of those
actions are not taken into consideration. This
ethics system is intended to be precise and by
the book. Doing the right thing means to follow
proper rules of behavior and, by doing so,
promoting fairness and equality.
That would be all for these topics .. I hope
malinaw. I will be including the types of justice
in your midterm exam. We have already
discussed those types of justice, the need based
justice, merit based justice,justice as equality,
criminal justice. I will post lecture notes for your
reviewer.