The Prinicple Of Utility Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account. (Cavalier) The principle of utility tells us to produce the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness, making sure that we give equal consideration to the happiness and unhappiness of everyone who stands to be affected by our actions. The principle of utility can be applied in two different ways. The first is to apply it to individual acts. How are we to do that? Well, we might ask ourselves every time we act which of the options open to us will maximize happiness, but Mill did not recommend that procedure because it would be much

too time consuming. Since we know that lying and staling and cheating will rarely maximize happiness when everyone is taken equally into account, the sensible thing to do is avoid such behavior without worrying about the principle of utility. (Barry pg.8) The learning process of Bentham and Mill was very strange and different. They expressed things in there own words that were different from the rest of us, and the way we might think about pleasure and happiness. Trying to understand where they were coming from was hard to follow and to understand. To understand the meanings of happiness and pleasure are difficult and will very from person to person. So when you think about it you try to see it from there point of view, but you can only see it from your view. You may understand

there what there expressing, but your though is what counts. B. Essays Essay one is about Welfare and Social Justice. To be more specific, is the argument that a person in need has no legitimate moral claim on those around him and that hypothetical inattentive society which left its blind citizens to beg or starve cannot rightly be censured for doing so. As seen from the individualist view. An individualist sets a high value on uncoerced personal choice. A person has every right, for example, to spend ten years of his life studying Sanskrit ? but if as a result of this choice, he is unemployable, he ought not to expect others to labour on his behalf. No one has a proper claim on the labour, unless he can repay the labourer in a way acceptable to that labourer himself. He may also

believe that, as a matter of empirical fact, existing government programmers do not actually help the poor. They support a cumbersome bureaucracy and they use financial resources which, if untaxed, might be used those with initiative to pursue job-creating endeavors. The thrust of the Individualist?s position is that each person owns his own body and his own labour; thus each person is taken to have a virtually unconditional right to the income which that labour can earn him in a free market place. On the Individualist?s view, those in need should be cared for by charities or through other schemes to which contributions are voluntary. (Barry pg. 333-34) Anyone that works for a living works for money and maybe because he likes it. Our society is made up many people that work and

those that don?t work and live off us. There is an individualist inside of everyone and with good reasoning that person will make the right decisions to set forth in his future. Arguments are what make up people and how we function in everyday life. Reasoning is part of your opinion and everyone else. The second essay directly contrary to the individualist view of welfare is what I have termed the permissive view. According to this view, in a society which has sufficient resources so that everyone could be supplied with the necessities of life, every individual ought to be given the legal right to social security, and this right ought not to be conditional in any way upon an individual?s behavior. A person who cannot or does not find his own means of social security does not

thereby forfeit his status as a human being. If other human beings, with physical, mental and moral qualities different from his, are regarded as having the right to life and to the means of life, then so too should he be regarded. A society which does not accept the responsibility for supplying such a person with the basic necessities of life is, in effect, endorsing a difference between its members which is without moral justice?(Barry pg. 334) If the Permissive view of welfare were widely believed, then there would be no social stigma attached to being on welfare. There is such stigma, and many long-term welfare recipients are considerably demoralized by their dependent status. These facts suggest that the permissive view of welfare be not widely held in our society. (Barry