Friday, February 24, 2012

Chapter 10 discussion

Choose one of the discussion questions from chapter 10 and answer it in a short, well-written paragraph. PLEASE INDICATE THE NUMBER OF THE QUESTION YOU ARE ANSWERING. You have until Friday, March 2 at 10pm to enter your response.

14 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 2. I feel that utilitarianism is not too demanding. It helps the grestest amount of people in are world. If something is decided under utilitarianism, then it would help the greatest number of people in a positive way. People should be responsible for each other and noot just themselves, but you should also be responsible for your actions as well. And if we are responsible for each other then we do not need to be as responsible for ourselves as we used too. We also need to think about are actions before we do something. We need to think if it will be good for people or if it will end badly. Are actions need to effect each other in a positive way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1. There is no unit of measurement to determine the amount of happiness in result of an action. Besides, there are different things that make different people happy and to different extents. There are different levels of happiness and different things and events that make people happy. For example, tasting ice cream for the first time would make someone really happy because it's a new experience and they can continue to try different flavors. So that person would be really happy. Now, if someone wins the lottery with over a million dollars, they would be really happy too. Perhaps their family was struggling financially. But, that someone could have been already very rich, and winning that amount would not make them as happy as if they had been struggling. The experience also matters with being happy, whether what makes one happy is a new experience or one they have had before because they know it makes them happy. Therefore, we really can't compare or measure the happiness of two different people. The only way we could compare is for them to tell us, but we still aren't able to measure each person's amount of happiness. This is a problem for utilitarianism because they can't judge which actions maximize well-being because they can't measure the amount of well-being as a result of an action.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Question #1:
    There is no way in measuring how much happiness is brought about an action the reason why is because it said it in the book that there is no unit of measuring an action with happiness. We have no way of comparing happiness. There are many levels of happiness for every action, every person may take it differently to. Some levels of happiness that are being used in real life are a 5 year old getting her first pair of diamond earrings she might not really care because she can't play with them but if you change the girls age to 16 years old she would be extremely happy because its a big thing and every teenage girl loves something sparkly on her!!! Another example is a person that is poor got laid off their job gave their car in for money and tried to win the lottery and got $1,000,000 his happiness would be different from lets say Donald Trump winning the lottery it would not make much of a difference because he is truly successful! There is no comparison between these examples they both are different in their own ways. I have to say that there is a problem for Utilitarians because they can not judge which actions maximize well being because they can not measure the amount of wellbeing as of an action.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Question 1 |
    ------------

    In the real world, happiness does not have a precise unit of measurement. There is a reason for this besides 'life' which reason is '42' of course. The reason for the happiness measurement (or the lack of) is that there are so many variables acting upon the action: when, where, how, who, why, just to name a few. This makes it difficult to find a measurement for happiness brought by an action. The answer is no different for comparing the happiness of two different people: there is no unit, there is no method, and if there was, it would be completely flawed due to the variety of actions that bring happiness. Unfortunately, this is a huge problem for Utilitarianism due to the idea of achieving the greatest amount of overall happiness. Because there is no measure, it is near impossible to find what causes the greatest amount of happiness.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I answer Question #3. Impartiality requires that you have no bias towards any one party. This is a substantial benefit to this doctrine: an impartial judge is one admired by all for his ability to reach a just decision biased in no way by race, creed, beliefs, or past interactions. However, impartiality in all senses is a truly limiting concept. Often, morality seems to require partiality. In calling for impartiality, utilitarianism violates basic human instinct. It is fact that your mother will matter to you far more than strangers starving halfway around the world. Faced with the news that my grandmother were dying and could only live through an expensive surgery, I would waste no time debating whether I should spend the money on her or use it for the homeless. Impartiality as a constant requires that we must deny all bonds of love and family ties for the sake of people we don't know, whose lives and deaths have no impact on our own.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Question 5:
    Rule Consequentalism is the view that an action is morally right just because it is required by an omtimific social rule. rather than determine an action's morality by asking about its result, we ask instead about whether the actions conforms to a moral rule. Utilitarianism and act consequenstialism differ because they have different claims about what makes something a moral rule. In consequentialism, the moral rules are the optimific social rules. I find consequentialism to be plausible because it looks for what is socially optimific.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Question 1: happiness has no unit of measuring. It is not possible to measure happiness. One major reason behind this includes that different people believe that different things make them happy. In other words, happiness can vary from person to person. For example, a man in a weak financial position has a hard time getting the money necessary to pay the bills. What if, out of sheer luck, this man wins the lottery of a million dollars? This happiness would be different than the happiness of Bill Gates winning the lottery for one million dollars. The values of the two types of happiness differ. It would be nice if we could name a unit of happiness, like the unit of energy, which is the joule. That would make the world a much easier place for consequentionalists; however it is not very realistic. Unfortunately there is no way to measure happiness. There is no unit, and even if there was a unit to measure such a thing, then on what basis would the happiness rely on. How would it be measured? What method would we use for this process? On what level would happiness be interpreted? It is clearly not possible, because of the previous example that was provided. A rich man, who has all the money in the world would have a different form of happiness, slightly different if compared to the happiness of the winning of a lottery by a man who if in financial trouble. The man in financial trouble would have more emotion played into the happiness. So if there was a way to measure happiness, would we have to include the emotions behind the happiness? Whatever seems to make one man happy would not be the same happiness someone else were to experience, if given the same scenario. Also take into the account that if someone eating gelato for the first time would experience a different type of happiness than maybe someone who just accomplished a novel. As I mentioned before, these two types of happiness cannot be compared on the same scale because they have different psychological and emotional backgrounds to them. It is just not possible to measure something that differs form person to person. In conclusion, from all of the examples I mentioned, I believe that there is no measurement of happiness.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 2
    I do think that utilitarianism is too demanding because you cannot make a decision just on your morals and what you think is best but instead have to find out all the possible outcomes and what is the best choice in the end. To me that process is to involved and no one would be able to achieve what utilitarianism asks out of them. Also the decisions you make have to have concrete and definite answers whereas most of the things which we have to decide upon there is no technically right or wrong answer. For example abortion, there is no definite one way or another or any evidence but instead there is wrong things about it but some positives that may come out of it. Another thing that is to demanding about utilitarianism is that some of the decisions that lead to the possible outcomes may make of commit awful acts which go against our deepest beliefs.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Question #3

    Impartiality amounts to treaty everyone equally. This means that you have to treat a stranger on the street the same way you would treat a family member or close friend. Utilitarianism requires a person to treat everyone equally in a sense that a person is not more deserving of your attention simply because they are related or very close to you. For example, if a parent had the option of using their money to pay for their child's surgery or to donate to a charity that feeds starving children, utilitarianism would require them to donate to the charity and not pay for the surgery. This is because with impartiality, just because you have a very strong relationship with someone does not mean that they are any more important than anyone else. Because of this, I would say that impartiality is a negative feature of utilitarianism.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Question3:

    Impartiality is a huge part of Utilitarianism. Impartiality goes as far as, feeding a starving child instead of getting a minor surgery for you son/daughter. Impartiality goes as far as, you giving a homeless person a car before you get a car. The whole big idea of impartiality is putting others before yourself no matter what the circumstances are.
    Treating all people equally is also a very important part of utilitarianism. This view means that you have to treat everyone the same no matter thier past actions,social status, or values/views. Pretty much if a person if a person is paralyzed from the waist down, they have no higher authority than the President of the United States of America. So Utilitarians think that to every extent we can possibly control people have to be treated equally.
    I think these one of these arguments are negative for the Utilitarian view. The impartiality argument frankly makes me angry. I mean if you would rather help someone in a third world country than, help you own son/daughter then go right ahead. But I for one think that is completely ridiculous. And with the argument for Treating everyone eqaully I think it is a positive atribution to the Utilitarian view. As kids we all wanted to be treated like adults to feel the same way everyone else does. I think we should do the same for all people, and if they don't like to treatment they get then we can stop.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Utilitarianism is too demanding because in the book when they talk about injustice and they reject it. For example the correct moral theory will never require us to commit serious injuries. Utilitarianism sometimes requires us to commit serious injuries. Therefore utilitarianism is not a correct moral theory. This the argument of injustice. This proves that they won't have loose interpretations of this theory.If it goes against any of the morals this theory has they will be denied. If has go with for the greater of amount of well-being than it is wrong. Hedonism is wrong to them because they do what they think makes them feel good.

    ReplyDelete
  13. 5. Rule Consequentialism is the view that an action is morally right just because it is morally required by an optimific social rule. An optimific social rule would have nearly everyone accept it. Rule Consequentialism demands that we always follow moral rules. If we know that breaking a moral rule would be more beneficial, we still must follow the moral rule, not break it. However, the rules and situations that are most beneficial most likely are just as well. According to consequentialists, we must always do what is optimific. I do not find rule consequentialism to be a plausible ethical theory because the idea contradicts itself. The idea is that we make the world an overall better place, but in order to do that, we must follow certain moral rules. These moral rules will not always be the "correct" choice in making the world a better place, so we are forced to pick the option that doesn't yield the most benefit. In these situations, we are not making the world a better place and even going against rule consequentialism.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am Joe Hinman with CDRE please let me know if you wish to remain on the contributor list of CADRE blog

    ReplyDelete