Philosophy Essay, Research Paper

An act utilitarian would go about determining their course of action by taking into account many factors. One factor that would be looked at is the society?s happiness, not just one?s own. The right action that is going to and should in fact be taken is not just any action, but one that will create the most happiness for the greatest number of people. This is one?s moral obligation as a person following strict utilitarianism. There are many things that force a person to act a certain way, such as law, customs, and beliefs. These binding social constraints hold one to act in a certain way to gain society?s approval. It is without question that there are moral feelings in all of us. These are also factored into the decisions that one makes. To decide a route to follow in a moral question, we all have the core feelings of sensitivity and compassion. These feelings make us look at any situation with these senses and may sometimes guide our decision. It has been shown that humans as a whole race desire happiness and things that will bring us happiness. As a pure act utilitarian one may justify his or her actions by feeling that no other act that could have been performed would have produced more pleasure for the whole society. The decision is not based on any of society?s rules, but solely on the pleasure principle, which state again that whatever action will produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people will be the correct action.

In determining the right course for this problem stated, there are many specific factors that need to be analyzed. Morality is the concept of what is a good action. In this paper, I will give my opinion of who is correct and tell why I think they are correct.

In the monster truck case, a truck driver is out of control. You see if the truck driver turns right, he/she will kill 12-20 people. If he/she turns left, he/she will kill 4-8 people or he/she drive straight off of a cliff, killing him or herself. You have no chance to run or yell at them to get out of your road. What do you do? I believe the truck driver should drive straight because he/she beliefs that the morally right thing to do is always the action that creates the most happiness in the world. It is generally good for society to reward people for doing right and to punish them for doing wrong with or because of this belief in the value of justice, a monster truck driver would have more trouble to turn right or left. He or she based his or her theory on happiness because he/she feels that everything we do is to achieve happiness in varying amounts. These varying amounts of happiness are like a measurement of happiness going from a little happiness, such as the love of your family.

I would arrive at my conclusion by figuring out the happiness value for each action and choosing the one that produces the most happiness. Or sometimes one has to calculate the unhappy caused, and pick the cause of action that produces the least unhappiness. To do this, I give numerical values to the amount of pleasure and pain the action would inflict on those involved and the people closest to those involved individuals. For example, if the monster truck driver drives straight of cliff, he or she would save 12-20 and 4-8 lives on both sides producing a thousand of units of pleasure apiece. Their families would experience thousands of units combined.

However, if monster truck driver turns right or left, he/she would cause 12-20 or 4-8 deaths, each death causing a thousand of units of pain to the person killed. Their families would feel a total of more than a hundred thousand units if he/she turns right or left. And the total of pain is definitely greater than going straight. From the general calculations, and that Utilitarianism outlines that an action is moral if it increase the total happiness of society, you see that the monster truck driver going straight creates the most happiness in this case. Morality is based on consequences. Therefore, the monster truck driver should drive straight of cliff because according to his theory, it is the morally right action and moral action.

On the other hand, if the monster truck driver thinks that he should turn right or left, under his concept of freedom of will, the fact that we can guide our own lives determines morality. He does, however, put two limits on our freedom. They are that others must be able to act in the same way as you have and that you cannot limit other people?s freedom of choice. Your freedom of choice is guided by a few rules and these moral rules are guided by maxims. A maxim is a sentence stating: “what you are going to do and what the reason is for your action”. The first rule is the “Universal law, which says that a maxim is good if everyone can use it and have it work properly”. By work properly, it is meant that if everyone chose the maxim, it would not harm him or her in the future. For example: the maxim could be to save 12-20 or 4-8 people lives if he or she drives straight in the monster truck case. Since everyone can drive off a cliff and it will work properly, it follows along with his philosophy.

In the spaceship case, there are four small spacefarers who will die if they do not kill a larger companion. In this case, it would be all right to kill a larger companion to save four small spacefarers’ lives because it would produce the most happiness in society. Moreover, saving these four people would bring about a thousand units of happiness compare to hundred units of pain, giving a happiness value of nine hundred. While if these four spacefarers do not kill a larger one, it would produces about two hundred units of happiness and about five hundred units of pain. You see the value of happiness for not to kill larger person is completely smaller than killing him/her.

On the other hand, if they did kill a larger person, according to their principle of thought, it is morally wrong because of the Formula for Humanity, which says: “a maxim is good only if people give consent”. In the spaceship case, it would be violation of Formula for Humanity, since no consent was given for them to kill a person. It also violates the Universal Law because the people would start to kill each other.

I feel that it is your duty to save as many lives as possible in any given situation. I know that if I let 12-20 or 4-8 persons die in the monster truck case, I would have a much harder time forgetting about my decision than if only one person or myself died. In the spaceship case, if they were killing a companion on the spaceship to save the other four people, it would be murder. It does not matter how you look at it. If a person is enjoying life, then to take that from he/she would be an immoral action. I feel that they should not have to take another man’s life to save the life of someone who is dying.

In conclusion, from general analysis, we have varying ideas about morality. I believe that the truck driver should drive straight of a cliff to save people on both sides. I feel that the truck driver case’s solution really has very good outcomes when it comes to my view. While in spaceship case, I think people should not kill each other because a person is enjoying life. Take that life is normally wrong. I feel that the idea of moral laws carries with a lot impacts, and the guilty associated with killing a person. All in all I feel in the spaceship case solution is the solution that I would choose not to kill.