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Utilitarianism In John Stuart Mill (a Critical Appraisal)
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Act-utilitarianism
is concerned or focuses on a particular individual’s action as it
appeals to the individual. Thus, the consequence of an action of an
individual becomes the standard of morality. As such if an action
produces the same consequence on a number of individual the particular
action is considered morally good, based on the aggregate of pain or
pleasure achieved. This principle implies thus that act-utilitarianism
does not consider the nature of an action. Instead, it counts on the
effect of such action on the individual: to judge whether an action is
right or wrong, what counts is the result or the consequences of the
action. It means therefore that as long as an action will produce the
best possible results for the greatest number of people that particular
action should be performed and be carried out as a morally good act. In
other words, the end justifies the means.
1.3.2 RULE-UTILITARIANISM
This
is another major form of utilitarianism. Rule-utilitarianism serves as
an important and intellectual alternative version of utilitarianism,
offered by the utilitarian in response to their critics. The basic
strategy of rule-utilitarian is to limit utilitarian analysis to the
evaluation of moral rules. What this means is that the supposed
determinant of a right (moral) action stems from the question of whether
the action is required by the correct moral rules that everybody should
follow. Hence, if an action produces pleasure when employed the general
rule of conduct it is regarded as morally good and vice versa.
According
to rule-utilitarian, when trying to determine if a particular action is
ethical, one is never supposed to ask whether that particular action
will produce the greatest amount of utility. Instead one is supposed to
ask whether the action is required by the correct moral rules that
everyone should follow. The basic question in this dimension should be
what would be the useful consequence of a moral rule if everybody adopts
and obeys it? Or what are the correct moral rules? It is such questions
as the above that should be our concern. Indeed, the correct moral
rules are those rules that would produce the greatest amount of utility
if everyone were to follow them thereby maximizing utility. Simply put,
rule-utilitarianism is concerned with rules as such the right action
here is that which is in consonant with those rules that will maximize
utility if accepted by all.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 6]
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