Angela Chavez PHIL 1120: Ethics and Moral Problems Personal Ethics Paper Assignment 3 December 2013 Some

Shall Still Suffer A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the worlds summer; this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life [3]. Ursula Le Guin writes in, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, of the joyous lives of the people who live in Omelas. Every single person is happy everyone, except the young child that is locked in a basement living in endless anguish. It is because of this childs suffering that every other person in this glorious town can be content. Further discussion of this story will be presented later, but an impending question has been presented: why is it in order for an entire to town to be happy, a child must suffer? The answer? It is the ethical theory of Utilitarianism. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines utilitarianism as the belief that a morally good action is one that helps the greatest number of people. [2] In laymans terms, doing the most amount of good, for the most amount of people the Principle of Utility. To better understand this concept, it should be broken down. For the most amount of people, is straightforward, but what is meant by good? Good, in this context, can be thought of as a lack of suffering, pleasure that is dependent on quantity and quality, either higher or lower. No one explains this better than John Stuart Mill in his piece, What Utilitarianism Is.

In his work, Mill states that, actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain the privation of pleasure [3]. Happiness comes in different amounts of quantities and different types of qualities. By qualities, some pleasures are higher or lower. A higher quality happiness is based on a pleasure that is intrinsically more valuable than the others. In this case people would still choose it over a different pleasure even if it is accompanied by discomfort, and if they would not trade it for a greater amount of the other pleasure [4]. Another feature worth mentioning is the concept of altruism being selfless and practicing concern for the welfare of others [5]. Those who practice Utilitarianism should also be altruistic; by being worried about the well-being of others, they attempt to eliminate suffering and promote most amount of good for the most amount of people. Overall, Utilitarianism is the basic concept of attempting to reduce suffering, to promote a greater amount of good for a greater amount of people. But still, as presented above in the Omelas excerpt, not every single person can be simultaneously happy. One persons happiness can interfere with that of another. That being said, in order for a great amount of people to be happy, one must be sacrificed and suffer for their happiness. Now whether Le Guins story supports or refutes the theory is left up to speculation. Even so, there have been some contemporary theorists that have added-on to this theory. J.J.C. Smart defended Extreme (act) utilitarianism, as opposed to Restricted (rule) utilitarianism, in his essay Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism. Extreme utilitarianism is the measure of the value of an act is the amount by which it increases general utility or happiness [7]. Restricted utilitarianism states that it is our duty to follow that rule that would have the best consequences if the rule is generally followed [8]. An action is morally right if and only if it is

most likely to produce the most utility in society. Furthermore, Smart mentions how an extreme utilitarian needs common sense morality as rules of thumb and that one needs morality as rules of thumb to avoid being biased in ones favor in calculating the consequences of acts. However, according to Smart, rules of thumb only work if people do not have sufficient reason to believe that acting otherwise would produce greater utility. As an example, if a man is drowning and I am capable of saving him, I should. But if I have good reason to believe that the drowning person is someone evil, perhaps like Hitler, I would leave him to drown. Now this differs from Rule utilitarianism because it holds that whether an act is morally right depends on whether it falls under a justified rule and whether a rule is justified depends on whether adopting this rule produces the most utility. Once rules are justified by the consequences, they are the source of justification of particular acts. But unlike extreme utilitarianism, rules are more important than the consequences of certain acts in determining morality of particular acts [9]. The main problem with Utilitarianism is that it is too broad. To do the most amount of good, for the most amount of people, does not explain how this should be brought about. With rule utilitarianism, a rule should be followed and is morally justified if it brings about the most utility. In extreme utilitarianism, people must do the act that promises to produce the most utility. Even so, in either rule or extreme utilitarianism, both still are similar to utilitarianism because they work to bring the most utility to the world. When it comes to extreme and rule utilitarianism, it seems reasonable to uphold the extreme view. First and foremost, with regards to rule utilitarianism, rules cannot be held to such a high value. It is just implausible to not allow some exceptions to rules. In certain circumstances, rules could be and should be violated. Rules just are not the ultimate source of justification [9]. Extreme utilitarianism holds that only the consequences of our actions are what

matters. If an act works to create the most utility in the world, which is what utilitarianism strives for, it should not be morally justified just on the grounds of whether it is or is not following a rule. Because the act is working for the most amount of good to the most amount of people, it is morally justified solely based on that fact. Nevertheless, extreme utilitarianism does not address the issue of some people still suffering while the greater majority is happy. In conclusion, Utilitarianism works to promote the most amount of good for the most amount of people. But the main problem with this is that in order to produce the most utility in the world, some shall still suffer. Not everyone can be simultaneously happy because their happinesses will conflict with each other. Though this issue is not addressed, extreme utilitarianism offers a new approach to the theory. It states that an act is morally justifiable if its consequences promote the most utility. Unlike rule utilitarianism, it is not based on having to follow a rule in order to be morally right. All in all, Utilitarianism just strives to make most people in the world happy.

CITATIONS:
[1] "Utilitarianism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism -Not actually used in the paper. Just used as a start-up reference. [2] "Utilitarianism." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Web. <http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/utilitarianism>. [3] Mill, John Stuart, and Ursula Le Guin. ""What Utilitarianism Is"; "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"." PHIL 1120: Ethics and Moral Problems. Salt Lake City: SLCC, 2013. Pg. 66-69; 82-86. Print. [4] "Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, Web. <http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/utilitarianism/section2.rhtml>. [5] "Altruism." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Web. <http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/altruism>. [6] "J. J. C. Smart." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._C._Smart>. -Not actually used in the paper. Just used as a start-up reference. [7] "Act Utilitarianism." Answers.com. Answers, Web. <http://www.answers.com/topic/actutilitarianism>. [8] "What Is Rule Utilitarianism?." What Is Rule Utilitarianism. Web. <http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-rule-utilitarianism>. [9] J. J. C. Smart. Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism in Louis P. Pojman, ed. Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 4th edition (Wadsworth, 2002). 177-183. -First cited at the end of the 5th paragraph to demonstrate that it was used as a source throughout most of the paragraph.