Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory that believes that right thing to do comes from a measurement of the amount of pleasure over the amount of pain, and decides that the right thing to do results in what will be the greatest pleasure for the majority of the group. In other words by calculating happiness you will be able to decide what the right thing to do is as long as it is right for the majority of the people. This seems as if it will only help the people that agree on the same things. Fifth majority always see eye to eye on hat is pleasurable and what is painful then it will work in their favor.
However, that leaves out the minority that may not agree with what is pleasurable. Utilitarianism seems as though it will stop individual rights, because the only way to conform to utilitarianism is by always agreeing with the majority of the group. While reading this chapter one example Came to mind, I brought a dilemma to decide how the majority and minority might see different on a subject. In many people’s eyes eating food out of a dumpster is unacceptable, therefore watching someone perform in this act may be more manful than pleasurable to see.
On the other hand there are people who may enjoy eating out of a dumpster with the beliefs that may contain more nutritional value and they only eat the foods that are not spoiled and rotten. These people are the minority to this social issue, however in utilitarianism because the majority of people think that eating of the dumpster is disgusting and morally wrong, they outlaw being able to do such things, which lead to the minority of people who do enjoy eating food from the dumpster in more pain than pleasure.
The argument can also be made that the majority is helping the minority increase their pleasure by getting them away from the diseases that are in the dumpster. Likewise, the argument from the minority may be that they are helping the majority not be wasteful by using the foods that are tossed out that are still edible. This brings another problem to utilitarianism, it brings the problem that not all pleasures and pains are measured evenly by every different person, what may bring a great deal of pain to you may bring a great deal of pleasure to the next person.
Also, how can you measure the amount some people are easily excited while others may take more to gain pleasure from certain activities. If utilitarianism as a theory was derived from human nature then we should be able to calculate happiness from observations and studies that will be performed on people, or based on knowledge from some parts of history. I believe that utilitarianism is a good and bad method because what is acceptable and the right thing to do in some peoples cultures is not always what is the right thing o do in others cultures.
If utilitarianism was able to adapt to each and every culture it will most likely not come with the same results and opposition on some different subjects therefore utilitarianism is not capable to be used as a widespread calculation on right and wrong, or happiness. In other aspects, I believe that utilitarianism is able to work in a smaller situation where you will know the measurements of the entire group’s pleasure and pain, which will allow you to make an accurate decision on what would be the right thing to
