Assess the claim that Utilitarianism fails to take sufficient account of the moral significance of our relations to others

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A comparison of how people used to live when they were still cave-inhabitants, with current living conditions that provide an organized society, with concepts such as justice, respect, tolerance and morality, we can feel justifiably proud of the progress we have made. Mankind has progressed so far because we have used our minds and thought about what is right and how things ought to be. For instance, it is recognized that war is bad, because people suffer from it and that it is their right to live in peace. However, doing the just thing can sometimes be hard and we need to form a theory according to which will help clarify such problems in all situations. The utilitarian theory suggests that any action we take should always bring with it consequences that are most beneficial to the majority, in order to maximize the happiness of human kind. Rule-Utilitarianism goes even further by saying that any action one takes must be fit to be used as a rule which anyone can follow in similar circumstances. However such a moral theory raises questions about whether it acknowledges the importance of the human being as an individual. Through this paper, I am going to prove that Utilitarianism does not fit this requirement, by analyzing arguments both for and against it.

Extraits

[...] Assess the claim that utilitarianism fails to take sufficient account of the moral significance of our relations to others Assess the claim that Utilitarianism fails to take sufficient account of the moral significance of our relations to others. When we compare how people used to live when they were still cave-inhabitants to how we live today, in an organised society, with concepts such as justice, respect, tolerance and morality, we should clearly be quite proud of the progress we have made. [...]

[...] I think that this is a point which Utilitarianism has overlooked because of its simplified rules in connection to the ties to our fellows. At first it appears to makes sense to include into the utilitarian theory the aspect of someone having to serve, suffer or be sacrificed to be able to fulfil other people's desires. Someone is always the loser, as in Darwin's theory of the 'survival of the fittest', not everyone can always win, because then, no one really would. [...]

[...] I am going to prove that this is not the case for Utilitarianism by first regarding arguments which can be made for Utilitarianism and then the ones which can be made against it. Utilitarianism has as its basis, to maximise total happiness and therefore is concerned with the welfare of humanity. Assuming that in order to achieve maximum happiness one person has to die for this to happen. The utilitarian truth will be that in this case we have no choice but to kill this actual person. [...]

[...] To think about others first sounds like a good ideology but in reality and because this is a reflex of survival we do whatever is necessary for us to live well first because as already mentioned only this enables us to be there for others in need if we do want to help them. Another important point in Utilitarianism is the way it makes fellow humans into instruments of one's own or the general happiness of everyone. A husband will pay special attention to his wife because logically he is in the best position to do so, because he knows her best and therefore he feels he is best suited to be in that particular position. [...]

[...] The theory that Utilitarianism always seeks to maximise pleasure or happiness for everyone does not take into consideration the individual as such in the sense that one must always think about others first. Utilitarianism simply assumes that the interest for oneself and the fulfilment of one's own desires is a given 'while a direct concern for others is inevitably problematic . ' and that a theory with its main concern being the welfare of others in society needs to be developed and followed. [...]