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Utilitarian View on Modern Day Situations Essay Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is the traditional understanding that the right act is the act which will actually, or most probably produce the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure throughout the world. The view was most famously founded by Jeremy Bentham, and later adapted by John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism focuses on the consequences of an event rather than following strict rules and in general can be classed as a type of naturalism that offers a reductionist approach to ethics. Natural Law Natural Law is the theory that all humans can discover what is right, due to moral being written into our nature in some way. This theory suggests that there are some absolute ethical standards are the set by the way the universe is and the way humans are. Natural law lies a great deal of importance on applying reason and science and the use of inherent values such as fairness. Situation Ethics Situation ethics are based on the principle of love, and how all right and good actions result in the greatest amount of love as a result. Due to this, human beings should always act lovingly but the values of acting lovingly largely depend on the situation and cannot be predefined, instead the values of situation ethics are free to change in any shape or form from example as they relate the circumstances. Proportionalism Proportionalism is neither deontological or teleological, but rather it lies somewhere in between the two. It is an extension of Natural law, that can be easily compared with rule utilitarianism. It has moral rules (generally of the Christian variety) and says that it is never right to go against a principle unless there is a proportionate reason which would justify it. So some things are always right or wrong, but in certain situations it could be tolerated, e. g. murder is always wrong, but there may be an exception in a just war. Toleration is not saying something is right or wrong, but rather is used to choose the lesser of two evils. Virtue Ethics Virtue Ethics describe the right action to be the action which a virtuous person would do in the same situation, and for this reason, Virtue Ethics are not absolute, they are relativist. Instead of looking at the consequences of a particular action Virtue Ethics looks at the character of the individual and as a result provides us with guidance of what are the ideal characteristics of a good person. Utilitarianism Perspective In Vitro Treatment Even though IVF has been criticized because many people think that it is an unethical method of creating a child, utilitarians have said that it can bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people, yet some people do not see how. Bentham’s hedonic calculus enables us to find out whether or not IVF will bring about this about. When Bentham came up with the idea of the hedonic calculus he asked seven questions that all try to predict. Regarding the length of the effects of IVF treatment, the answer to is that the effects will last a life time. When creating a child you don’t expect the effects to last for a short period of time, you want them to last for the rest of your life and the rest of the child’s life. For example the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, is now actually a mother herself. Furthmore, there is also the case of whether the embryo will attached to the inside of the mother womb and investigations have shown that there is a one in five chance that this will happen, even though this may seem a high risk factor there is a twenty per cent chance of at least one of the eggs taking if ten are fertilised. As a result of this IVF treatment, both the mother and the father will be greatly effected in the majority, because they will have to donate their zygotes and then have them fertilised. Afterwards the woman will have to have the eggs implanted into her womb and even then the embryos may not take. There is also the financial side to this treatment, it costs a lot of money and even then the embryos might not take to the woman’s womb therefore it would just be like burning money because it is, in a sense, money wasted. The doctors will be affected because what they are doing is hard work, but they will be affected in a good way because they are getting paid a lot of money for this. There is no saying how many lives the child will affect in the future. That maybe is one of the drawbacks of IVF treatment, the child might grow up to be hooked on drugs or be a rapists or serial killer but then don’t you take that risk with any child? Then the weakness is in Bentham’s hedonic calculus i. e. it is not possible by any means to predict the future yet we still try to through means like this. The IVF treatment could also take as long as you want it. Then there would of course be there is the process of waiting for the baby to be born if the IVF is successful but it could be born late or early, so again we cannot predict the future because of the fact that it is too uncertain. The final and question is whether the act of IVF treatment will cause happiness or un-happiness in the future, and my answer to this is that the future is so uncertain it is almost impossible to predict what is going to happen. From the evidence above it is clear that a utilitarian wouldn’t support IVF treatment, because it isn’t certain whether or not this treatment would avoid pain and create the most amount of happiness, because the IVF treatment might not be successful and then there is a lot of money wasted on embryos that didn’t work. There might be a lot of future un-happiness more so than future happiness. Then there is the factor that the IVF treatment takes a long time and might not last a long time because the baby may miss-carry. This is definitely one of the drawbacks to utilitarianism, because the future is so uncertain it is not possible to predict whether or not this baby will become something that will go onto help others and create happiness or be something that ruins peoples lives and ruins their own lives. Natural Law Perspective In Vitro Treatment The underlying principal of natural law is that as God has created us then we should let nature take its course. In doing this, we are therefore allowing the will of God to be performed. If you take this stance then clearly you would be against any form of fertility treatment. This type of treatment is seen as interfering with nature and therefore offends the principles of Natural Law. If a woman cannot conceive then it is natures way of saying that she should not have children we should not interfere with that decision is the view of the proponents of natural law. They would also be against genetic engineering and designer babies. Utilitarianism Perspective Voluntary Euthanasia The definition of the word Euthanasia is A good and peaceful death. Utilitarianism is a moral theory which stresses that the goal of moral endeavour ( or to put it another way, the measure) is the production of Good. any action is to be assessed by their production of good consequences. If the definition of Euthanasia is applied then as it is supposed to bring about good in the form of a peaceful death then utilitarianism can be brought into play because the result is good the action must be morally correct. Natural Law Perspective Voluntary Euthanasia Natural law holds that human beings by nature do good and avoid evil and these goods are observable goals that we are fundamentally born with in our nature. Natural Law deals in moral absolutes that cannot be broken regardless of the situation, The end never justifies the means, so no amount of suffering can justify an evil act. To aspect of protecting the innocent is seen to be very important by those that follow Natural Law, therefore it would seem that euthanasia is always wrong. However, the principle of the double effect must not be disregarded. As whilst it is seen as wrong to kill, is giving someone pain relief if a secondary effect is that they die wrong? In this situation, you are asking Is death a proportionate outcome? For this reason, while Natural Law doesnt support active euthanasia, I believe that in some cases it might well allow an action whose intention is merely to relieve pain, even if the action leads to death. The Implications of Benthams Theory on Animal Treatment In my opinion Jeremy Bentham would claim that the morally relevant question about animals is not Can they reason? or Can they talk? but, Can they suffer ? And, animals do in fact suffer, and do in fact feel pain. Therefore he would argue that pain is an intrinsic evil whether it is experienced by a child, an adult, or an animal. If it is wrong to inflict pain on a human being, it is just as wrong to inflict pain on an animal. For this reason, animals should be treated with the same amount of respect as human beings are treated as it has yet to be proven, it will likely will never be proven, that animals do not suffer. Why punish criminals? Utilitarian Perspective According to utilitarianism our duty is to do whatever will increase the amount of happiness in the world. Utilitarians view punishment as treating people badly, by taking away their life or freedom through capital punishment and imprisonment. In Bentham’s own words, he wrote, â€Å"all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil. † So what do Utilitarians think about capital punishment? At first it may seem obvious that they oppose it, because by punishing someone, this person will suffer thus will be unhappy. Because punishment is a means of producing suffering, nd suffering is bad, punishment can only be justified on utilitarian grounds if the amount of suffering is outweighed by benefits to society and that good cannot be produced in any other way that does not involve suffering. In other words, if punishment will bring about more good than bad for society, and that good cannot be produced in any other more advantageous way, then it can be justified on utilitarian grounds. Here are many ways where punishment can benefit society: First, capital punishment can help to reduce crimes by being a deterrent to would-be criminals. Someone who is tempted to commit a crime might not commit the crime now that he knows that he would be punished, thus introducing the threat of punishment. Second by making people who have already committed crimes incapable of committing future crimes. By executing criminals, they will be taken off the streets, they will be removed from this life, and further crimes that they were going to commit will be avoided. In this way there will be less unhappiness. Third, the act of capital punishment may in some case provide comfort and gratification for the victim’s family. The victim’s family may be comforted if they knew that the killer has received what he deserves. In conclusion, a utilitarian would advocate the death penalty only if it is the only way of generating benefits to the society which are greater than any harms, or evil which its use may cause. A society might be happier to know that a murderer can never kill again, and it may in fact make the murderer himself happier with his life ending immediately rather than spending his whole life imprisoned. How does Mills approach to justifying any majority inflicting pain on the minority address the difficulty of Benthams hedonic calculus? Mills approach to pleasure wasnt simply based on quantity, he instead described there to be two levels of pleasures, higher and lower. The higher pleasures were intellectual pleasures, whilst the mower pleasures were purely sensual. Mill also stated that most ordinary people should generally follow the traditional moral rules rather than calculate every situation. This is the reason why some people state that then surely John Stuart Mill is a Rule Utilitarian, who should generally following moral rules, even if the rules are decided through Utilitarianism. How does Rule Utilitarianism prevent the justification of executing any minority, as issued by the majority? Rule Utilitarianism ensures that the traditional moral rules should be followed, therefore whilst rules are in place, these rules may be decided by Utilitarianism. This will prevent extreme cases from taking place and general rules in society being overturned by the majority.