Animals just follow their instinct and cannot differentiate between good or bad. For example, one cannot convince a lion not to hunt when it’s hungry, even say when the prey is someone’s child. This is because the lion does not see hunting a child as something bad and so cannot make a choice between sparing the life of the child or satisfying it’s hunger. On the contrary, the lion is not found guilty if it kills the child because the lion lacks high order thinking capabilities to choose between their courses of action or to make decisions. In this scenario, the lion is just taken as an example but this applies to the majority of animals. This is the most obvious distinction between human beings and animals. In my opinion, “right” is the ability of choosing what is better on a moral basis and the inability for animals to do so makes them unqualified for possession of any…
When looked at in terms of utilitarianism, many aspects of the way I choose to interact with non-human animals are valid, and some are not…
Not all animal lives are of equal worth. Human interests may outweigh those of nonhumans.…
The middle classes required a channel for their humanitarian passions. Unable to aid the victims of social problems such as slum dwellers, the unemployed or children in need, the plight of animals became a surrogate cause to campaign for. This lack of an alternative outlet may have resulted in a disproportionate response to issues related to animal well-being (Turner, 1946)…
Another objection is that in everyday circumstances it is impossible for humans to make a morally just decision (“Defense”). An additional counter-argument that struck me the most was the statement that utilitarianism sets standards that are deemed "too high for humanity" (“Defense”). What this objection projects are the predisposed and unwarranted capabilities of the human race. According to this statement humanity is made comparable to other (lower ranking) species that lack the intrinsic values that make us humans human; like thinking faculties that are much superior to other animals or the ability to have languages or develop intricate cultural systems, just to name few. Therefore, making this objection a weak one and one that displays an inferior and subjacent view towards the principle of…
There are 2 main types of utilitarianism, the first I will talk about is Rule. Rule utilitarianism has certain principles involved with it, and from these, certain actions that we commit are able to be deemed as unacceptable. The principle of utility is therefore applied to a rule so the rule will stay if it leads to greater happiness for more people. This therefore means that if you do something bad that may lead to many people being happy, it could go against a rule or principle that has been set down in Rule…
Utilitarianism is the philosophical idea of doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. It removes human values and emotions from the decision making process. It is more or less a numbers game.…
Utilitarianism treats human and nonhuman animal as same species, Sharfer-Landau (2015) explained, “utilitarians argue that animals are member of the moral community.” A qualification to be the moral community is to be able to suffer. Although nonhuman animal cannot talk like human nor express their feeling freely like human, yet they do suffer like human. Therefore, utilitarians consider human and nonhuman animal both as the moral community.…
First I would like to start off by defining what utilitarian mean well based off of the module a utilitarian is the person who believes in the greater good in other words a person who would take losses and justify it’s worth by the results gained from it. Now in regard to the question on how might utilitarian respond to the situation of the innocent man who was executed in order to keep the citizens from rioting. My answer to that is it would be the exact same result, because of how a utilitarian thinks. In situations like this I would guess that a utilitranian would not even hesitate to kill the innocent man, because a utilitrain would think that excuting the innocent man would be beneficial for the majority of the citizens so he would…
In A Critique of Utilitarianism, Bernard Williams argues that when following a Utilitarian approach for moral dilemmas, Utilitarianism might have us sacrifice or modify our moral integrity. Williams explains this argument with a hypothetical execution situation with protagonist Jim. Jim, who is a botanical expeditionary, accidentally wanders in the central square of a small South American town. There, he finds twenty Indians tied up in a row, with several armed soldiers standing in front of them. The captain in charge of the soldiers, Pedro, is ready to execute the Indians for protesting against the government. However, Jim is a foreigner and is honored by the captain. Because of this special occasion, Pedro gives Jim the option to shoot and kill one Indian. If Jim accepts, the other nineteen Indians can go free, if not, Pedro will shoot all twenty like intended. The Indians beg Jim to accept the offer and shoot one of them. Now, Jim is faced with a difficult decision whether to shoot one Indian or let Pedro shoot all of them. What should Jim do? It is not sure what the right course of action is, but four different theories could help him decide. These theories are: the Divine Command theory, Cultural Relativism, Kantianism, and Utilitarianism. In this paper, I will present these four theories and their suggestions for Jim’s right course of action, the faults in these theories, and how Utilitarianism is morally correct in this case.…
In this paper, I will argue for the truth of utilitarianism. In my opinion, the most interesting version of utilitarianism is hedonistic utilitarianism. It is the most interesting because it defies logic and rationale in favor of impulsion decision making. Hedonistic utilitarianism is the most interesting version because it is tied more intrinsically into the wellbeing of an organism, specifically humans, than any other alternatives of utilitarianism. Other forms of utilitarianism are wide-ranging and in my opinion not applicable to everyday decision making processes for one’s actions, whereas embracing a hedonistic decision making process is simple by conforming to ones desires based on impulse and therefore more applicable to everyday scenarios…
The ethical theory that an act you choose should produce the greatest amount of pleasure or happiness and the least amount of pain or suffering, is known as Utilitarianism. However, this theory is not about your happiness alone, but about making the greatest moral choices, that brings the utmost happiness to everyone. This theory comes from consequentialism which is a family of concepts that share the same idea; if an act creates positive results, then it is thought to be good. Utilitarian’s must consider each separate case on its own facts; there is no wrong or right action, only that which extends the over-all happiness. Therefore, how a Utilitarian chooses to deal with the issue of abortion would be decided on a case by case basis.…
Darwell’s objection to Utilitarianism states that it conflicts with moral common sense in three particular case studies. The first objection to Act Utilitarianism is “promise keeping.” Act utilitarianism is inconsistent with the moral conscious, because it forward looks considerations of what one would do. The consequences of not keeping the promise may be hard to determine whether it is right or wrong. One example of Darwell’s objection to Utilitarianism of “promise keeping” is keeping promises to the dead. Suppose you made a promise to your father to carry on the family business when he passes away. You have inherited your father’s multi-million dollar business after he has died. According to act utilitarian, you can sell the company and donate all of its money to a children’s charity, since your father is dead and his happiness is no longer an issue. You have maximized happiness for many children by breaking your promise to your father and destroying the family business. But, Rule utilitarianism says to keep the promises you have made. Rules were made to maximize happiness.…
The issue of animal rights revolves around the question of whether animals should be given the same rights as humans. (“Animal Rights” Current issues: Macmillian Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2011) I feel that animals should be treated kindly but using animals in experiments for science and medicine can sometimes be very useful. Many people believe that animals lack the mental and spiritual qualities of humans.…
Utilitarianism depends on the happiness of people and by happiness I mean pleasure. When a person experiences pleasure they usually experience pain along with it in some form, or the pain is caused to somebody else. Pleasure is not the only thing that utilitarianism depends on. Along with pleasure it depends on the amount of pleasure, how great the pleasure is, and more things that are along the lines often pleasure the consequences of an action has as an outcome. Despite the action or decision there will always be some sort of consequence. When I usually think of consequences the first thing I think of is a bad outcome that has been caused by my actions. I believe the reason I associate the word consequence with a negative thing is because I always heard people say that if you do that there will be…