Utilitarianism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Utilitarianism - Essay Example Bentham’s Principle evaluates unhappiness and happiness based on their relation to pain and pleasure respectively. His principle characterized by the use of anxiety, closeness and unease as the basis for describing pain and comfort (Smart & Bayles, 1968). John Mill defined utilitarianism criticizing Bentham’s proposition. He described it as a quality representing delight as opposed to pleasure. He added that it is impossible to quantify pleasure thereby leading to the conclusion that the greatest principle of utilitarianism is enjoyment (Smart & Bayles, 1968). Act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism are the two categories defined by Start Mills. In this course, Smart states the importance of deriving the importance between the two categories in the process of understanding the implication of an individual’s actions. According to act utilitarianism, rules are not required to guide judgement of happiness. It states that moral rightness of an individual’s action is judged on the basis of comparison of the happiness it yields to what any other actions he or she could have performed within that time. A good illustration; if the consequences of breaking a promise are considered more rewarding compared to keeping it, there should be no regulations restricting an extreme utilitarianism. On the other hand, Rule utilitarianism evaluates rightness according to its conformity to the rules that are known to yield greatest good. In which case, rightness of the subject rule acts as a bechnmark for deciding on the rightness or wrongness of the given action (Kant, 1998). If embraced by all, a maximum enjoyment would be realized. An activity will be evaluated according rules followed hence a noble action follows defined rules. However, there are some flaws associated with utilitarianism. One of these is that it appears to limit ethical theory by ignoring means, considered to be of significance for advancement of