Theory of Utilitarian and Ethical Concepts-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the theory of Utilitarian and Ethical Concepts. Answer: The theory of Utilitarian is the concept that believes in spreading maximum amount of happiness to maximum number of people and determines that action which achieves the abovementioned criteria as ethically justified. Therefore, according to Sheng (2012), the theory of utilitarian is associated with justification of any action as moral or immoral and good or bad. In the previous assignment the theory of utilitarian was used to analyze the proposal of accept the funds of Ronald McDonald House Charities. In this section, the theory of utilitarian will be critically analysed and the limitations of this theory will be evaluated. This theory of utilitarian was developed in 18th century and is believed to be a Godless approach of ethics as philosophically it does not believe on the concept of god to make human happy (Bhaskar, 2014). Further, the primary concept of the theory is to stay happy and focused in life as the god also wants the humans to be happy and contained. However, according to Berns et al., (2012), this happiness is not associated with an individual, but associated with the entire community and if the happiness of the community is different from that of the individual, then the theory will focus on the happiness of the greater entity. Therefore, it will neglect the happiness of the individual. On the other hand, according to Jones Felps (2013), there is no measuring technique that determines the level of pain and happiness therefore, there is no such action through which we can measure the generated happiness or sadness among a group of people. However, through mere observation, it can be under stood the difference between actions generating happiness or sadness among people, therefore the concept of more happiness is illogical. The theory of utilitarian allows people to break their promises to achieve more success and happiness for a section of people, therefore, applying this theory does not the value the trust of a smaller section of people, as their trust will be broken to bring happiness of a larger section of people (Bhaskar, 2014). Therefore on humanitarian grounds this theory seems irrelevant and hence, it is the limitation rather than the strength of this concept. Further, as the concept and view of happiness is different for different people, it is quite difficult to understand the level of happiness to which the person will take decision regarding the actions to bring happiness for a community. Therefore, this idea of utilitarian and its concept of happiness seems illogical and unethical as at the cost of a smaller groups sadness, a larger sections happiness is decided (Sheng, 2012). Further, if this theory is applied in the society, the needs of minorities, the depriving section having lack of ec onomic stability, environmental discrimination and political disrespect will never achieve its unmet needs and the rich portion will start dominating them for their own greater good (Alexander, 2014). Hence, while concluding, it should be mentioned that the theory of utilitarian has several flaws and mistakes in its central philosophy and the concept of happiness. This is because happiness is subjective and depending on that the greater good of one section seems illogical and unethical References Alexander, J. C. (2014).The Antinomies of Classical Thought: Marx and Durkheim (Theoretical Logic in Sociology)(Vol. 2), 1st edn, pp. 123-156, Routledge. Berns, G. S., Bell, E., Capra, C. M., Prietula, M. J., Moore, S., Anderson, B., ... Atran, S. (2012). The price of your soul: neural evidence for the non-utilitarian representation of sacred values.Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B,367(1589), 754-762. Bhaskar, R. (2014).The possibility of naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences, 4th edn, pp 12-67, Routledge. Jones, T. M., Felps, W. (2013). Shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare: A utilitarian critique.Business Ethics Quarterly,23(2), 207-238. Sheng, C. L. (2012).A new approach to utilitarianism: A unified utilitarian theory and its application to distributive justice(Vol. 5), pp. 13-57, Springer Science Business Media.