Question

Sandel, Justice, Chapter 2, The Greatest Happiness Principle/utilitarianism, pp. 31-57

Can a case be made from a utilitarian view that Captain Dudley did the right thing in deciding to eat the cabin boy? Explain in 1 short paragraph.

Answer 1

Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral theories. Its core idea is that whether actions are morally right or wrong depends on their effects. Utilitarianism is a kind of ethical system which determines whether an action is moral you merely have to calculate the good and bad consequences that will result from a particular action. If the good outweighs the bad, then the action is moral. More specifically, the only effects of actions that are relevant are the good and bad results that they produce. In the language of utilitarian, we should choose the option that “maximizes utility,” i.e. that action or policy that produces the largest amount of good. The most common argument against act utilitarianism is that it gives the wrong answers to moral questions. Critics say that it permits various actions that everyone knows are morally wrong. The following cases are among the commonly cited examples:

((( If a doctor can save five people from death by killing one healthy person and using that person’s organs for life-saving transplants, then act utilitarianism implies that the doctor should kill the one person to save five.)))

The strongest argument for the defense is that, given the dire circumstances, it was necessary to kill one person in order to save three. Had no one been killed and eaten, all four would likely have died. Parker, weakened and ill, was the logical candidate, since he would soon have died anyway. And unlike Dudley and Stephens, he had no dependents. His death deprived no one of support and left no grieving wife or children. This argument is open to at least two objections: First, it can be asked whether the benefits of killing the cabin boy, taken as a whole, really did outweigh the costs. Even counting the number of lives saved and the happiness of the survivors and their families, allowing such a killing might have bad consequences for society as a whole. It accepts the utilitarian assumption that morality consists in weighing costs and benefits, and simply wants a fuller reckoning of the social consequences