Utilitarianism Essay -- criticisms of utilitarianism

This essay will bring out the key features of Utilitarianism and identify the problems of Utilitarianism to the extent to which they make Utilitarianism unacceptable. Jeremy Bentham founded Utilitarianism. He lived at a time of great change. With revolutions in France and America, demands were being made for human rights and great democracy. Bentham worked on legal reform. Utilitarianism is associated with the principle of utility. Utility means the amount of joy or delight that nighbody gains from consuming a commodity, product, or service, i.e. useful. The indulgent calculus, which is his system for measuring how good or bad a import is At the time Bentham put forward the theory it was instrumental. It changed the way indian lodge was run and the way society now thinks for the better. It dramatically made changes to the penury in Britain confirmatoryly. Theories that ar interested in the ends are known as teleological. Telos is Greek for the e nd. Therefore teleological means that the ends justify the means, utilitarianism follows this rule. Utilitarianism is the greatest rightness for the greatest number of heap. The rightness of actions depends on their utility, and the utility is measured by the consequences, simply meaning the greatest good by moral actions. If the consequences are good, then the moral actions are not as relevant. A positive example is Lucy wins the lottery. Instead of keeping it all to herself, Lucy decides to share it out with just about of her friends, because she thinks it will make them happy. Lucy is doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people and is doing it using goodness ... ...peoples common agreement about what is pleasure and what is pain. There are problems concerning what some people would hand pleasurable and what others would consider not pleasurable. Problems arise such as taste in music, hobbies and beliefs. In conclusion Utilitarianis m has its political benefits, but is not clear enough with some aspects. It doesnt show what is unacceptable in utilitarianism. Utilitarianism doesnt have the tractableness of considering individual circumstances and moral values have no reflection in this theory. Utilitarianism is focused on quantity rather than quality. It seems rather a simple theory the greatest good, for the greatest number of people, just when you delve into the theory it becomes rather too complicated. For people to live by a theory it needs to be simple and clear.