Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism


What is the principle of utility? Is it as an adequate basis for judging the progress of society or the desirability of different social institutions? What are its virtues and limitations? How would a utilitarian approach to judging society differ from a more traditional moral approach? In his book Justice; What’s the right thing to do?, Michael Sandel explains the history and the approach to utilitarianism.
The principle of utility was Jeremy Bentham's idea on how society progresses through maintaining the greatest happiness or good for the greatest number of people. The ideology of utilitarianism, was later formed by John Mill who offered the phrase and an explanation with regards to its moral implications.
It sounds logical for a society to want the greatest happiness or good for itself. In general we regard individuals who are well cultured and who do not do “bad things” to be happy and we respect them for it. However, that depends on what we see cultured and “bad things” to mean.
We have already seen that the idea of what is morally correct, and the notions of what is more morally correct are philosophical, sociological and theological problems that almost every philosopher has tried to answer; and all come up with varying responses. Everyone sees murder as being wrong and as being an act that could not bring happiness or good. However, this does not account for those who like to kill. They are part of society, so does their happiness not matter? Now if you had a population of murderers or even people who did not necessarily kill but liked seeing others kill or be killed (maybe on TV or the movies), does their happiness still show a society of progress? I would hope not.
To this Mill would say that I was probably right, but that people would not choose to live like that. Instead they would opt for a moral happiness. They would look for the (higher) levels of happiness like knowledge and culture. I would then reply that he has...