Utilitarianism Is To Obtain What Is Best For The General And Overall Good?

Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human

Utilitarianism is the ethical belief that the happiness of the greatest number of people is the greatest good. Jeremy Betham and John Stuart Mill are two philosophers that were leading advocates for the utilitarianism that we study today. In order to understand the basis of utilitarianism, one must know what happiness is. John Stuart Mill defines happiness as the intended pleasure and absence of pain while unhappiness is pain and the privation of pleasure. Utilitarians feel the moral obligation to maximize pleasure for not only themselves, but for as many people as possible. All actions can be determined as right or wrong based on if they produce the maximum amount of happiness. The utilitarian belief that all actions can be determined as right or wrong based only on their repercussions connects utilitarianism to consequentialism. Consequentialism is the belief that an action can be determined morally right or wrong based on its consequences. Just like any other belief system, utilitarianism faces immense amount of praise and criticism.

Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory. It concerns how to evaluate a large range of things that involve choices communities or groups face. These choices include policies, laws, human’s rights, moral codes,

Utilitarian is defined as; the doctrine that an action is right as far as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct. This is the defining principle of the philosophy that is Mill’s. His philosophy is based on the concept that the pleasures of most trumps the pleasures of few. In another one of Mill’s works “On Liberty” he speaks more on the way that society should work in a way that creates a system of success universally. Mill writes, “What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation.” (Mill,2) Mill writes this for a ruler needs to release selfish tendencies when he is leading a nation or any group of people and look out for the wellbeing of all. Mill’s utilitarian society would be a society were all selfishness would be gone creating a world were bribes and other back door deals where problems are created would vanish and create a more balanced society. Mill says, “It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower

Ever since the 17th century, utilitarianism -and many more political ideals like it, started becoming popular, and rightfully so as the world grew unbalanced economically due to expansionism. Utilitarianism is used precisely for achieving overall happiness in a society and does so without regards to how it is achieved. Specifically, to achieve the greatest

Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory that states something is considered to be right when it does the most good for most the most amount of people (Duignan 2015). This theory doesn’t consider the feelings of the individual; it considers the feelings of the majority (Duignan 2015). Utilitarianism is very different from relativism, which takes into account the totality of circumstances, this philosophical theory states that what is considered to be right or wrong can vary depending on people and society (Rachels 2015).

The basic premise of utilitarianism is the achievement of happiness for the greatest sum of people [ethics in action Domenec Mele]. This principle places the interest of the many over the interest of the few and as such the rightness or wrongness of an act is based only on the perceived or expected outcomes of that act as it relates to the utility obtained. http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/cavalier/80130/part2/sect9.html Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills were the main proponents of this

Utilitarianism is the moral doctrine that we should always act to produce the greatest possible balance of good over bad for everyone affected by our actions (Shaw & Barry, 62).

In his essay, Utilitarianism Mill elaborates on Utilitarianism as a moral theory and responds to misconceptions about it. Utilitarianism, in Mill’s words, is the view that »actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.«1 In that way, Utilitarianism offers an answer to the fundamental question Ethics is concerned about: ‘How should one live?’ or ‘What is the good or right way to live?’.

Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that holds the morally right course of action in any given situation is the course of which yields the greatest balance of benefits over harms. More specifically, utilitarianism’s core idea is that the effects of an action determine whether actions are morally right or wrong. Created with the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), Utilitarianism began in England in the 19th Century. Bentham and Mill built their system of Utilitarianism on ancient hedonism (pursuing physical pleasure and avoiding physical pain). Although both of these philosophers agreed on the basic principals of Utilitarianism they disagreed on what exactly hedonism is.

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, as explained by the philosopher Mill. Given several choices, a utilitarian would pick the morally correct choice by using the Greatest Happiness Principle (487). By looking at whether the consequences of an action will produce the greater happiness for the greater number of people than another action would, one can

John Stuart Mill, in his Utilitarianism, turns morality into a practical problem. His moral theory is designed to help one evaluate his moral principles and senisibilites and be able to ajudicate conflictions in moral conflicts. Mill postulates that actions are right so far as they tend to promote happiness and minimize pain. This theory manifests itself as an impartial promotion of happiness. Morally "right" actions are ones which promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number number of people and reduce pain. Utilitarian moral theories need to be coupled with theories of well-being, so that we can point to what is being maximized through the moral theory's operation. Mill's moral theory is

Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of

Utilitarianism, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, states that the morality of an action should be judged based on the extent to which it produces happiness, or the opposite of happiness—an action is good as long as the result is happiness, and deemed bad if it results in pain. A clearer understanding of what Utilitarianism is can be gained by John Stuart Mill’s characterization of what it is not. He states, “I believe that the very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of its meaning, is the chief obstacle which impedes its reception; and that could it be cleared, even from only the grosser misconceptions, the question would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed” (Mill, 2007, p. 4). In defining Utilitarianism, Mill dispels common misconceptions that are held about Utilitarianism in order to give the reader a clearer understanding of the doctrine and the rationales that support it.

Utilitarianism is one of the most commonly used ethical theories from the time it was formulated by Jeremy Bentham and John Stewart Mill in the nineteenth century. In his work, Utilitarianism, Bentham “sought to dispel misconceptions that morality has nothing to do with usefulness or utility or that morality is opposed to pleasure” (MacKinnon, 2012, p. 53). To simplify the utilitarian principle, which is one of utility, one can surmise that morality is equated with the greatest amount of utility or good for the greatest number of people (MacKinnon, 2012). Also, with its orientation to the “end or goal of actions” (MacKinnon, 2012, p. 54), Utilitarianism thus, espouses the consequentialist principle, e.g., the evaluation of any human act lies not so much in the nature of the act or the drive behind the act but rather the result of the act (MacKinnon, 2012).