Act Utilitarian is a school of thought that believes that the actions of a human being are acceptable as long as they bring about acceptable results in the context in which he or she made them. Utilitarianism involves considering a particular action and analyzing the action in terms of happiness (Sheng 78). For example, it would be wrong for an employer to deny someone a job based on the fact that he or she is unattractive rather than consider academic and other qualifications. Act utilitarian also considers the fact that one does not have time to examine the results of their action even if they have time, they will choose it based on their pleasure or happiness, for example choosing to work for a charity group which will benefit a lot of individuals or buying a television, one will obviously lean on a choice that brings him pleasure. Act utilitarian can agree with facial discrimination. This can happen when one selects more attractive people in a company than selecting based on academic merits. If the consequence of this action benefits the company, act utilitarian will support the action and this will promote more facial discrimination. Therefore, act utilitarian focus on the overall result.
Rationale behind utilitarianism
Humans are intelligent beings, each and everything they do comes out of reasoning. Whether it is done knowingly or unknowingly, everything that a human decides to undertake is for a purpose, and it is justified in their minds before they can begin executing it. Utilitarianism are governed by rationality most of the times if not all the time. It is constructed and guided by the asset of principles that help individuals to draw the line between right and wrong, good and evil (Sheng 118). Humans use instincts or habits formed from previous encounters, but they act according to conscious decisions of what they perceive as right or wrong. Then how do human arrive at these decisions? What do humans use to measure their actions against? This is where ethical relativism and ethical egoism comes in.
Utilitarianism and its aspects pose a very significant challenge when one discusses ethics rationally. First and foremost, unlike relativism is centered on a concept that believes that there is no absolute truth in ethics and whatever is considered right for one individual may not be right for another or may vary from society to society (Sheng 108). Making it hard to pinpoint to any logical conclusion or rationality. Various organizations have different customs, and each thinks that his traditions are better than the other is. No particular set of social customs are preferable than the others (Varner 88). It can be argued that morality is constructed differently within various cultures. Each community comes up with standards that are utilized by individuals within it to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Every judgment of right or wrong assumes or abides by these set standards. For example, if polygamy is considered right for one community, then it is right for that entire community, and if the same practice is deemed wrong for another within a different society, then the method is wrong for the whole of the nation. In Ethical Relativism there is no such concept as a constant absolute right as they are no neutral standards that can be used to compare the ethics and decide what is right and what is wrong. Therefore this poses a significant challenge when trying to evaluate ethics rationally.
Whereas ethical relativism tries to explain that there is no line between wrong or right or good and evil. Utilitarianism suggests that people tend to behave in a manner that favors their self-interests above the interests of others. If selfishness is true, then morality is not possible because morals sometimes need an individual to consider putting others first rather than their ambitions or self-interests (Varner 123). When a utilitarian choice is about to be made one will think how it will benefit him or her more unlike relativism, which tries to weigh in on how the decision will affect the rest of the people as well. For example, if one could benefit from donating 10000 dollars the morally acceptable thing to do is to stay with the money instead of giving it out to charity. In addition, focuses on an individual, and it is descriptive. It tries to be factual by describing human affairs, which are self-centered and not otherwise. People act for various reasons but what is behind their drive is it themselves or god or for the good of the society. Can a person work only based on his interests without considering the benefit of others.
Counter argument
Individuals try to avert getting into the discussion as they claim that moral positions are just contrasted in opinions. If that were a fact one would be forced to believe that there are good morals or good prudent reasons for not getting into arguments with other people, that it was good to avoid conflict with other people on contentious issues (Varner 67). Instead, people who support utilitarianism impose their views on others also known as ethnocentrism. But then one has to personally agree that being ethnocentric is ethnically no right and there are good reasons why it is wrong.
On the other hand, psychological the perception surrounding utilitarianism can be discredited the moment one finds an instance in which an individual has acted in the manner that is against his self-interest probing that there is ethics (Varner 71). The theory only trues to portray humans as self-centered and cannot behave otherwise; therefore, anything that represents humans as selfless discredits it.
Comparison with other concepts
Whereas a theory Kantian focuses on motive rather than the outcome, utilitarianism is centered on the results only. According to Kant, people know what is morally right, but they do not want to do it. This is because what is right may not directly benefit the individual. For example, when one comes across a wallet with a wad full of notes, the right thing to do is to return the item with the money, but it is in an individual's interest to keep the money even if there was certainty that the individual would misuse the funds (Hursthouse and Crisp 90). If humans were to be controlled by the desires and feelings, then they would not be able to conduct themselves morally at all. In the case of a lion that hunts down a human being, it would be absurd to claim that the lion had an ethical duty not to kill the human nature yet; a lion only depends on its feelings and instincts to react.
On another hand, if a person died of another human being, he could be found reprehensible and could be taken to court for prosecution. Unlike animals, human beings have the capability of behaving morally hence can reason beyond their feelings or desires and override their emotions to act ethically (Bartels and Pizarro 131). Lions respond to their desires when they are triggered. Only a human have the mental capacity to choose. The free will to choose, according to Kant means that humans can act autonomously, which means that they can conduct themselves according to the laws of their own making. Being free means to be able to make decisions without the influence or impact of the surrounding environment an individual finds himself in hence implying that one can make reasoning beyond their desires.
Without free will, ethics is impossible according to the opinion of utilitarian deontology. At times one's wishes may be in line with what is ethically right and sound thing to do. Individuals are supposed to react based on moral duty and not moral laws (Vaughn 150). If an individual act based on moral obligation but not motivated by moral requirements he or she does not have free will as laws of psychology already decide their actions. Not doing what is right is not an issue, doing the right things for the right reasons is the ultimate objective of morality. Being rational depends entirely on applying reason and logic, which helps to do the right thing hence in the case where there is no absolute right or wrong for one to cause with ends up affecting the judgement of a rational. Hence, in the end, rationality cannot apply when it comes to one thinks of it in terms of egoism or even utilitarianism.
Works cited
Bartels, D.M. and Pizarro, D.A. The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. Cognition, 121(1), pp.154-161, 2011
Hursthouse, R. and Crisp, R. Normative virtue ethics. Ethica, 645. 2013
Sheng, Ching Lai. A new approach to utilitarianism: A unified utilitarian theory and its application to distributive justice. Vol. 5. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
Varner, Gary E. Personhood, ethics, and animal cognition: Situating animals in Hare's two level utilitarianism. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Vaughn, Lewis. Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton & Company, 2015.
