Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society. Mill believed indivduality is what it is to be human and anything that takes away your indivuduality is wrong. Mill state in his book On Liberty “Whatever crushes indivduality is despotism.” Despostism is the idea of dictatorship so Mill is saying that anything that stops our indivduality for example religion is controlling us and not allowing us to be free, which is wrong. Althought we are free we must consider others, this means that we can use our freedom however we must make sure we are not spoiling the freedom of others. This is supported by Paul Kurtz who states humans have the right “to satisfy their tastes” but however they shold not “impose their values on others.” For example you may want to murder someone with your free will however if you go ahead and commit the crime you are negatively effecting others in society and this is wrong.
Utilitarians fixate on this exact notion. The idea is that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong, consequences are all that matter. Utilitarians focus primarily on welfare in order to make the best decision, or rather the more just decision. It is based on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, in the long run. Utilitarianism emphasizes the idea of welfare as a means for justice because it primarily defers to the masses.
Rand says “Reality, the external world, exists independent of man’s consciousness, independent of any observer’s knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears…” (qtd. The Ayn Rand Institute 1). Consciousness, therefore, is to distinguish reality, not to fashion or form it around a personal belief. Consequently, Objectivists reject all forms of a supernatural or any beliefs unfounded in fact. In the quote below Rand explains why she rejects religion outright, and she believes man himself deserves the attention: Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man’s reach.
From this Moore claimed that it is impossible to derive an ‘is from an ought’. This criticism became known as the naturalistic fallacy. In addition to this G.E Moore claimed that naturalism was not able to stand up to the open question argument. ethical naturalism claims to be based on moral facts, it would therefore seem logical that these facts should stand up to scrutiny. Yet, if we observe that pleasure is good, we should be able to ask is good pleasure.
Assess Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a consequentialist approach to ethics, meaning the consequences of an act are what matters. The utilitarian answer as to what to do in any situation is that we should always act to maximise utility. There are two different interpretations of utilitarianism; the positive being that we ought to do that which brings about the greatest happiness of the greatest number and the negative being that we ought to do that which minimises pain or suffering. Utilitarianism is teleological, or goal orienteered, meaning that the end matters more than the means used to achieve the end. The various forms present two major problems; the problem of justice, and the issue of having to predict the consequences of an action.
He also includes its "fecundity" (will more of the same follow?) and its "purity" (its pleasure won't be followed by pain & vice versa). In considering actions that affect numbers of people, we must also account for its EXTENT. John Stuart Mill adjusted the more hedonistic tendencies in Bentham's philosophy by emphasizing (1) It is not the quantity of pleasure, but the quality of happiness that is central to utilitarianism, (2) the calculus is unreasonable -- qualities cannot be quantified (there is a distinction between 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures), and (3) utilitarianism refers to "the Greatest Happiness Principle" -- it seeks to promote the capability of achieving happiness (higher pleasures) for the most amount of people (this is its "extent"). Act and Rule Utilitarianism We can apply the principle of utility to either PARTICULAR ACTIONS or GENERAL RULES.
‘’Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end’’. The third imperative says that we as humans should all live moral lives; we cannot depend on anyone or anything else. "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends." An important strength of Kant’s ethical system is that Kant does not specifically set any deontological rules. Kant talks about the Summon Bonum, ‘’the real object of our will’’, he says that we cannot achieve this without our own morality entering into the equation for making decisions.
However, other people may disagree with this and believe that a deontological ethical system is not defensible because it cannot encourage human beings to act morally, as they will not gain enough satisfaction out of doing so, as they would in a teleological ethical system where the ultimate end or goal is human happiness. People may say that it can be hard to keep to deontological ethics when we cannot see how they will immediately benefit us, making teleology much more appealing. In my opinion deontology can be defended because deontologists do not judge actions by their consequences, this is a positive aspect of deontology because it does not allow people to do bad things to secure good consequences, if we really consider human happiness, at first it sounds appealing and simple. However, if all actions were done to secure human happiness then many evil deeds would be permitted, for example it may secure a psychopath with maximum happiness if he can rape and murder women and children. Therefore teleology would permit this as it would maximise the psychopaths happiness.
Since every ethical system should evaluate itself as the best and only moral system, and every other system is flawed and immoral, it is assumed that moral judgements about ethical systems are meaningless. Moral Relativism rests on the belief that values are subjective. It is holds the belief that there is no objective morality, that there is no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil. Only that, moral systems are just made up and supported by the circumstances of the action. Moral Relativism cannot and does not accept the idea that an objective moral system exists.
Utilitarianism is consequentalist ethical theory. When an action is judged entirely on the utility. So an action would be determined on the outcome and the consequences. In utilitarianism the utility of an action is decided on how much pleasure and happiness is gained from it, so it is about maximising happiness as much as possible rather than gaining pain and sadness. The two most well known utilitarian’s are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.