Utilitarian Consequentialism

Although I'm hesitant I think I would assess utilitarianism as the best moral philosophy.

The reason I'm hesitant though is because you could easily say something like this:

"There are 10 violently criminal people and 1 saint. The 10 criminals are on one train and the saint is on the other. You can only save 1 train from exploding" Then it would seem that saving the 10 criminals would be the "utilitarian" choice.

However I say that choosing the metaphorical saint could be the "true" utilitarian choice because you have to look at the bigger picture. If you save the 10 criminals it would result in more "bad" for more people if they go unchecked because their bad influence would ripple out and cause harm to a greater amount of people.

Now, I'm sure there are plenty of "what if"s like "what if the criminals all changed their ways?" but we have to look at what's most likely. Whether you like it or not, a person's past says a lot about their future behavior. We're creatures of habit to say the least. If someone is a staunch vegetarian their whole life it's not likely that one day without provocation they will suddenly start eating meat.

Also, we must consider how OUR choices affect outcomes. If people are saved based on their numbers alone it says nothing about moral repercussions. It would mean that going with the crowd is always right no matter what the crowd is doing. If we reward people who are good all along even if it defies the crowd it encourages the behavior throughout society.


I don't know if it's possible to measure happiness without something like a survey for each individual to fill out and people could easily lie. Perhaps instead of measuring the happiness felt we can measure the good deeds done. Of course that's also very subjective and somewhat fuzzy but it's far more tangible and perceivable by others.

I think it's legit to analyze what good/bad and right/wrong mean.

Imo "good" is utilitarian by its definition. "Good" is happiness. We say that things are "good" because they make us happy. Sure, you can say that sometimes people are shortsighted and I think that just goes to prove that "good" is truly utilitarian. It's not what just makes us happy temporarily, it's what gives us the maximum amount of happiness. Often choices that make us happy in the short term will make us unhappy in the long run, thus making them actually "bad" choices.

Like the veggies vs cookies argument. Cookies may make us happy in the short term but if that's all we ever eat we will likely regret it because we'll have health problems.

Right and wrong may more or less be a matter of efficiency. If you're trying to mow your yard it's "right" to do it with a lawnmower and "wrong" to do it with a spoon. Applied morally, things that are "right" give you more efficient outcomes of "good" or happiness.