Utilitarianism

Identify and briefly explain the four factors of evaluation used in the chapter's act utilitarian evaluations.

1. The number of people made happy or unhappy 2. The intensity of the happiness and/or unhappiness 3. The duration of the happiness and/or unhappiness 4. The certainty of happiness and/or unhappiness.

What moral conclusion would an act utilitarian reach in the case of lying? Briefly explain why the act utilitarian would reach this conclusion

It was ethical for Rose to lie. 4 people were happy and 2 were unhappy with the results of the lie. The duration of the happiness lasted longer than the unhappiness. Even though the intensity and certainty had no useful results, the first two factors made the lie ethical.

What moral conclusion would an act utilitarian reach in the case of unauthorized copying of software? Briefly explain why the act utilitarian would reach this conclusion.

It was ethical to make a copy of the software. For medium and high intensity, more people experienced preference satisfaction. Additionally, the duration of this satisfaction lasted longer for those with preference satisfaction than preference unsatisfaction

Identify the four steps in the act utilitarian ethical procedure

1. Identify the action 2. Identify the consequences of the action that relate to happiness and unhappiness 3. Evaluate the consequences of the action using four of Bentham's utilitarian factors 4. Reach an ethical conclusion about the action by reviewing the results obtained with the four factors.

In your opinion, which is the stronger ethical theory, ethical egoism or act utilitarianism? Support your answer with at least two reasons

Act utilitarianism is a stronger ethical theory than ethical egoism. Act utilitarianism focuses on all persons affected by an action instead of a single individual. This ensures than the total happiness produced by an action is maximized instead of causing net unhappiness among all persons involved, with only the ethical egoist being happy. Additionally, act utilitarianism, unlike ethical egoism, has reasons and calculations behind actions that are considered ethical. Act utilitarianism focuses on producing net happiness for all individuals involved. Ethical egoism has no reason for the actions considered ethical since the ethical egoism should not be considered superior to everyone else. Thus, apart from purely being an ethical egoist, there is no reason for an ethical egoist to produce net happiness for only themselves.

Summarize both the strength and the weakness of act utilitarianism related to confidence in moral evaluations.

Act utilitarianism is a theory that involves careful analysis and evaluation of a particular situation, which makes people confident that they are performing good actions and making ethical decisions instead of blindly following rules that may not cause net happiness to all persons involved. The weakness of act utilitarianism is that there are cases in which traditionally unethical actions are deemed ethical due to the people they end up affecting. Additionally, some people may have a problem with an ethical conclusion if it involves sacrificing a minority if that would bring about the greatest overall happiness for those involved.

According to Jeremy Bentham, what kinds of actions are morally significant? What kinds of beings would be considered morally significant beings?

Actions which produced pleasure and pain or happiness and unhappiness were morally significant. Any being who could experience pain and pleasure.

Define the term utilitarianism

An ethical theory that asserts that what is good is what produces more pleasure or happiness than pain or unhappiness for the persons affected.

What commonality among people acts as the foundation for utilitarianism? Why is utilitarianism considered a consequential ethical theory?

People want to be happy and do not want to be unhappy. It is an ethical theory that relates moral evaluations to the consequences of actions

How is rule utilitarianism different from act utilitarianism? Briefly identify and explain the three criticisms of rule utilitarianism that led text's author to choose act utilitarianism as the chapter's focus.

Rule utilitarianism claims that a moral rule is one that, if recognized as morally binding by everyone in the society of the agent, would maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness. Act utilitarianism evaluates individual actions to see if they are moral. 1. The ethical procedure of act utilitarianism is easier to use successfully than the rule utilitarian process 2. If maximum happiness is really the goal, then act utilitarianism is the superior theory 3. Rule utilitarianism will end up looking very much like act utilitarianism

What was the final weakness of act utilitarianism? What does this final weakness lead many people to conclude?

The final weakness of the theory is that it creates too impractical of a demand on us. This causes people to conclude the theory requires them to give up too much of them in terms of money, time, and personal projects which they regard as important.

What is the focus of moral evaluation for act utilitarians? Why is Bentham's "Principle of Utility" important to act utilitarianism?

The focus is on individual actions. It articulates the idea that a specific action is good if it produces more happiness or pleasure than unhappiness or pain for everyone affected by it.

Utilitarianism is related to the term "utility." According to Jeremy Bentham, what is utility?

The property in an object, whereby it tends to produce benefit advantage, pleasure, good or happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the part whose interest is considered

Summarize both the strength and the weakness of act utilitarianism as related to happiness

The strength is that act utilitarianism is based on the fact that people want to be happy and not unhappy. This gives the theory strength since this fact is not abstract or speculative. The weakness of the theory is that it requires a person to treat his or her happiness as no more important than anyone else's, making it difficult for many people to accept the theory.

Summarize both the strength and the weakness of act utilitarians as related to observations and calculations

The strength of the theory is that since it involves observable and empirical matter of happiness and unhappiness, the theory is easier for many people to accept since a theory grounded in observations and calculations seems more likely to be correct than one based on speculations and vague comparisons. The weakness of the theory is that the consequences that need to be observed and calculated are sometimes difficult or impossible to identify and compare.