Morality and Utilitarianism Essay

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that holds that an run is counterbalance if it produces, or if it tends to produce, the broadest amount of wide-cut for the greatest number of people abnormal by the transaction. Otherwise the action is wrong. This cost-benefit analysis is a form of utility(prenominal) calculation. People in business theory use utility curves to spot the results of various actions, choosing those that maximize whatever it is that they wish to achieve. This utility approach is not extraneous to most people. It is widely use in many forms of habitual decision making and can be applied to virtuousistic issues as well as to strictly business issues.A defense of usefulism as an ethical theory is that it describes what rational people actu completelyy do in making moral decisions. It explicitly formulates for them the procedures they intuitively and spontaneously use in moral reasoning. The theory renders explicit what is implicit in the ordinary moral reason ing and argumentation that we ourselves use Utilitarianism adopts a teleological approach to morals and claims that actions are to be judged by their consequences. According to this view, actions are not superb or bad in themselves. Actions take on moral set only when considered in conjunction with the effects that follow upon them.ACT AND regularize UTILITARIANISM Act utilitarianism holds that each individual action, in all its concreteness and in all its detail, is what should be subjected to the utilitarian test. Rule utilitarians hold that utility applies appropriately to classes of actions kinda than to given individual actions. Thus, by looking at the general consequences of breakage contracts in the past, we can determine that breaking contracts is immoral. OBJECTIONS TO UTILITARIANISM One objection claims that utilitarianism is over-the-top because it proposes utility, rather than the Bible or God, as a basis for moral judgments.A second objection frequently brought a gainst utilitarianism is that no one has the clock to calculate all the consequences of an action beforehand. A third objection to utilitarianism is that we cannot fare the full results of any action, nor can we accurately weigh the different kinds of best and evil that result. The calculation is artificial and not practical. APPLYING UTILITARIANISM 1. Accurately state the action to be evaluated. 2. Identify all those who are directly and indirectly bear upon by the action. 3.Consider whether there is some dominant, obvious consideration that carries such importance as to outweigh different considerations. 4. Specify all the disposed(p) good and bad consequences of the action for those directly affected, as far into the forthcoming as appears appropriate, and imaginatively consider various possible outcomes and the likelihood of their occurring. 5. numerate the total good results against the total bad results, considering quantity, duration, propinquity or remoteness, fecun dity, and whiteness for each value (kind of good and kind of bad), and the relative importance of these values.6. keep back out a sympathetic analysis, if necessary, for those indirectly affected, as well as for society as a whole. 7. Sum up all the good and bad consequences. If the action produces more good than bad, the action is morally right if it produces more bad than good, it is morally wrong. 8. Consider, imaginatively, whether there are various alternatives other than simply doing or not doing the action, and carry out a similar analysis for each of the other alternative actions. 9. Compare the results of the various actions.The action that produces the most good (or the least bad, if none produces more good than bad) among those addressable is the morally proper action to perform UTILITARIANISM AND BRIBERY Bribery in business is an interesting kind of action to examine from a utilitarian point of view, because those who engage in bribery frequently justify their actions base on something similar to utilitarian grounds. Utilitarianism, far from being a selfish approach to moral issues, demands careful, objective, and impartial evaluation of consequences. It is a widely usedbut often misusedapproach to moral evaluation.A goodly tool of moral reasoning, it is a technique well worth mastering. end SUMMARIES An Airplane Manufacturing Case An airplane manufacturer has spent a great deal of money developing a new airplane. The company staidly needs cash because it is financially overextended. If it does not get some declamatory orders soon, it will have to close down part of its operation. Doing that will disgorge several thousand workers out of jobs. The president of the company bribes a foreign minister to insure the purchase of the planes, arguing that the good done boilersuit justifies the use of bribery.