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In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. [1] [2] In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number.
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that normative ethics examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, whereas meta-ethics studies the meaning ...
Act utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics that states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces the best possible results in that specific situation. Classical utilitarians, including Jeremy Bentham , John Stuart Mill , and Henry Sidgwick , define happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain.
This would also allow average utilitarianism to acknowledge the general human preference for life. Average utilitarianism is treated as being so obvious that it does not need any explanation in Garrett Hardin's essay The Tragedy of the Commons, [9] where he points out that Jeremy Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" is ...
Two-level utilitarianism is virtually a synthesis of the opposing doctrines of act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism states that in all cases the morally right action is the one which produces the most well-being, whereas rule utilitarianism states that the morally right action is the one that is in accordance with a ...
While these other theories would also support minimizing suffering, they would give special weight to reducing the suffering of those who are in the worse position. The term "negative utilitarianism" is used by some authors to denote the theory that reducing negative well-being is the only thing that ultimately matters morally. [4]
Robert Nozick, a twentieth century American philosopher, coined the term "utility monster" in response to Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of utilitarianism.Nozick proposed that accepting the theory of utilitarianism causes the necessary acceptance of the condition that some people would use this to justify exploitation of others.
A person’s shaping his life in accordance with some overall [value rational] plan is his way of giving meaning to his life; only a being with the [value rational] capacity to shape his life [instrumentally] can have or strive for meaningful life. [5]: 50 The utilitarian right to satisfy individual ends does not prescribe just institutions.