Ethical Theory Of Utilitarianism

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The theory of “Utilitarianism” will be later applied in the case of whether it is an ethical decision for the Cambodian government to shut down the independent newspaper, the Cambodia Daily. The ethical theory of utilitarianism is used to determine the decisions in people’s lives. The theory of utilitarianism simply refers to how we make decisions based on the result of producing a greater amount of happiness for a greater number of people. No different from other branches of the ethical theories, utilitarianism has been facing critics on the application of its theory. The utilitarianism theory was founded by the Englishman Jeremy Bentham and profoundly supported by the British intellectual, John Stuart Mill. The two believed that generally if utilitarianism is being used in deciding the public policies, it would get rid most of the worst commercial businesses (Neher & Sandin, 2017). The theory of utilitarianism focuses on determining the rightness or wrongness of the actions by totalling the amount of the positive and negative consequences. For instance, you have to choose whether to allow your children to play video games. This means as a utilitarian, you have to question whether it will promote the greatest long-term happiness? Bentham developed his theory in a very detailed system for calculating the quantities…show more content…
Mill (1871) states that utility is an uncertain standard, which different people understand differently and there is an undeniably false ruling of justice (Crisp, 1998). Another example of utilitarianism on justice is the different opinions people have on the justice of punishment in terms of how the punishments are carried out against crimes (Crips, 1998). In other words, some people may view there should be punishments only for people who commit crimes. Crips (1998) argued that “individuals themselves hold conflicting principles of justice”

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