ad449212@ohio.edu
Utilitarianism- Initial Reaction
After
reading a segment of "Moral
Reasoning for Journalists" by Steven Knowlton and Bill Reader, I had a few
questions about utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the idea that whatever helps
the most people is what is the most ethical. This also means that it is a
person’s ethical responsibility to prevent pain for as many people as possible.
When I first read this theory, I thought that it made perfect sense. By
maximizing the happiness and well-being for as many people as possible, you are
thereby being the most ethical you could possibly be. Since helping people and
protecting their happiness is an ethical thing, then basing your decisions on this concept appears logical. This argument crumbles however, when looked
at any closer.
Whose happiness is the most valuable?
This theory implies that lying to a
group of people to keep them in the dark over the truth of a painful situation is more
logical then telling the truth and causing them pain. Another way to look at this in contrast, is does this justify lying to a source about the real point of your story in order to get more information that will be useful to you? I found this story addressing
that issue here. It is something I still
feel unsolved about.
I decided simply cannot agree with this concept. What if you are to lie and later the truth comes out? While you were trying to act as
ethically as possible at the time by maintaining happiness, you would be
increasing pain for the later date when the truth is revealed.
This theory also
is not sound because it implies that someone’s happiness or pain may be more
valued than another person’s. Another
flaw is that this concept invites people to rate how much of an emotion they
are feeling, whether pain or happiness. This is something that is nearly
impossible to do objectively.
Yet another
flaw to this theory is the idea that people might not really know what is best
for them. What makes a person happy is very possibly not the most ethical
circumstance. For example, if it would make me happy to steal a candy bar and I
would not get caught and therefore my mother would not be disappointed and the
store clerk would not be angry, does that make it ethical? No.
*This
theory is not all bad. This
shows how utilitarianism is the basis for the concept of freedom of expression
and speech.
What does this mean about our government?
Once deciding
that this theory is not what I agree with, it led me to question: Why is this
the basis of our government? Appeasing the most people does not lead to the
most ethical scenario in arguably the majority of situations. There could be
people with ill intentions and people who are ignorant to the reality of a
situation that make up part of the majority. Therefore, these people’s
happiness might not really be in the majority’s
best interest or ultimate pleasure when all the information is revealed. The only conclusion I could
come to is that a “majority rule” is the only way to make government seem fair, even though some people’s views being weighed equally to other’s may not be such a
good thing.
Talk about something that makes you feel skeptical about government.
No comments:
Post a Comment