Utilitarian Approach to an Economy
1 Introduction
Utilitarianism is a major position in normative ethics stemming from the late 18th and 19th century philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Contrary to the deontological approach to ethics that perceives morality as a duty or a moral rule that has to be followed, utilitarianism is a form of teleological ethics focussing on the consequences of actions meaning that the moral value of an action is solely determined by its outcome. Thus an action is considered right if it tends to produce happiness and wrong if it leads to the reverse effects of happiness, not only to the executer of the action but also to everyone else that is – either directly or indirectly – affected by the action.
The influence of utilitarianism on other areas besides philosophy, such as law, politics and economy, over the last centuries has become clearly notable, whereas this paper focuses - besides a detailed description of the classical utilitarianism itself - explicitly on its influence on decision making with respect to the economy. Based on the common characterization of utilitarianism that ethically right acts are those that produce “the greatest good (or greatest happiness) for the greatest number” this paper aims at examining this formulation in detail with respect to applying it to the decision making process in business which has a considerable influence on economy.
Chapter 2 aims to set a frame for the later theoretical discussion by presenting the basic concepts of utilitarianism. Chapter 3 further deals with the fundamental idea of the utilitarian theory formulated by Jeremy Bentham and several problems associated with its application. Chapter 4 covers John S. Mill’s enhancement of Bentham’s theory. Based on this background information, chapter 5 illustrates the how utilitarianism can be applied to decision making in business and thus impacting the economy by presenting three distribution formulations that can be derived from the classical utilitarian
Utilitarianism is a major position in normative ethics stemming from the late 18th and 19th century philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Contrary to the deontological approach to ethics that perceives morality as a duty or a moral rule that has to be followed, utilitarianism is a form of teleological ethics focussing on the consequences of actions meaning that the moral value of an action is solely determined by its outcome. Thus an action is considered right if it tends to produce happiness and wrong if it leads to the reverse effects of happiness, not only to the executer of the action but also to everyone else that is – either directly or indirectly – affected by the action.
The influence of utilitarianism on other areas besides philosophy, such as law, politics and economy, over the last centuries has become clearly notable, whereas this paper focuses - besides a detailed description of the classical utilitarianism itself - explicitly on its influence on decision making with respect to the economy. Based on the common characterization of utilitarianism that ethically right acts are those that produce “the greatest good (or greatest happiness) for the greatest number” this paper aims at examining this formulation in detail with respect to applying it to the decision making process in business which has a considerable influence on economy.
Chapter 2 aims to set a frame for the later theoretical discussion by presenting the basic concepts of utilitarianism. Chapter 3 further deals with the fundamental idea of the utilitarian theory formulated by Jeremy Bentham and several problems associated with its application. Chapter 4 covers John S. Mill’s enhancement of Bentham’s theory. Based on this background information, chapter 5 illustrates the how utilitarianism can be applied to decision making in business and thus impacting the economy by presenting three distribution formulations that can be derived from the classical utilitarian
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