Utilitarianism

Personally, I believe in utilitarianism and I follow this principle for most aspects in my life. But it almost seems to easy to make large decisions by just weighing the costs and the benefits. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that everything you think about when making a decision can be categorized as a cost or benefit. Whether this effects someone else, whether your parents will be proud of you, what this will do to your reputation- all of these are either costs or benefits. And I do believe that we need to try and be happy in our lives, otherwise what do we have. You could have everything you ever wanted in the world, but be miserable.

Scenario 5: City of Happiness

I would just let the child be, and not interfere. You have to make sacrifices in life, and if you sacrifice the life of one child for a whole city, then I think it is worth it. But I also feel like this would almost make the city unhappy, because some people must have guilt riding over them because they know of the secret. I still think that the benefits outweigh the costs, though.

Scenario 6: Hampsterdam

I don't agree with just putting the crime aside because police are there to serve and to protect the citizens, whereas by doing this, they are just giving up. It shows defeat. Also, their duty is to serve and to protect all citizens, including those that do wrongly, so how in any way is this manifesting these ideals? I see the benefits, but you're never going to progress in society if you just put things aside and ignore them, they will arise again.

Scenario 7: The Price of a Human Being

I am pretty disturbed with all of these situations, just because I seriously disagree with the practice of putting a price of the life of a human. No human is worth any amount of money to another. It is just so wrong to say that you should sacrifice a life because it will make you money. I could never live with myself if this happened. Also, I am shocked at the Ford Pinto situation because they knew that people were going to die, but all they cared about were their own profits. That is honestly just sad and shows how self-centered and deprived these people were of moral values.

Has my view changed?

My view hasn't really changed that much, because I feel that I was troubled by some aspects of the principle at first, which turned out to be the main flaws. I didn't think you could apply this to everything because of moral values etc. Everyone has different values on things, so it can't be standardized. But I thought you could fit morals into the costs and benefits. However, you can't. It is just a straight mathematical equation. But life isn't like that. Life is complicated and involves so many different aspects that need to be accounted for. In this way, I don't agree with utilitarianism. But in other ways, I do. For small decisions that don't involve hurting others I believe that it is okay to apply this principle. When you are taking into account another person's free will or life, that is when it gets complicated.