The Ethical View of Utilitarianism - Essay Example

The Ethical View of UtilitarianismUtilitarianism becomes a very practical option in many situations. Given the circumstances which Engineer Bill has been subjected to, while supporting Sarah would be what his heart might be screaming out since she was right before, he should pave way for a safety exit for the train. This action would follow the foundation of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the ethical view that every action is either right/wrong on the basis of the impact that it will create, more specifically if it will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Deontology on the other hand is the ethical view that at least some actions will be right/wrong regardless of the consequences that they produce. Both theories follow different directs and have their own constraints and thresholds. The constraint of deontologists follows from their view that there may be circumstances in which one would be prohibited from taking an action even though it might trigger greatest amount of human happiness. In Engineer Bill’s case, from deontologist’s point of view, Sarah should be saved even though saving Sarah might mean killing a hundred other people in the train.

However a utilitarian would opt for saving the train.[Cat11]In Janitor Joe’s case unless Joe himself volunteers to give his body parts, it will be ethically wrong to forcefully kill him just to save others. In Engineer Bill’s case both Sarah and train were unexpectedly put under circumstances where Bill is left no other option but to choose. Here in Janitor Joe’s case other options can also be looked into and it makes no sense to impose death on someone even if it is at the cost of so many others.

In the case of evil Hobo, Bill must save Sara. This is because Sarah has been deliberately framed into such a situation where she is being catapulted towards death. In this case while utiliatarianism may save the life of many but morally and ethically deontologists perspective holds more weight. The threshold for the deontologist is a limit over the amount of harm that the moral allows him to make while threshold for the utilitarian limits him on the amount of harm he can cause. Every situation is different and sometimes the moral action needs to be carefully weighed.

In each of the aforementioned situation the context in which a particular ethical action followed was very important. In some cases like Engineer Bill’s case, given the cause of the harm (Sarah), the utilitarian perspective outweighed the deontologist’s perspective within the discussed thresholds and the leverage for harm that is allowed in both cases.[Eth11]Works CitedCat11: , (Rainbow), Eth11: , (Moreland),