Write a 6 pages paper on philosophy of utilitarianism
Therefore this poses another critical question: what would you do if harming or killing the other party will elude the highest happiness? First, he cites an example of a person driving along a tunnel and realizes a farmer falls on the road just in front of his vehicle. If you move ahead, you will probably kill the farmer but if you divert, you will probably collide with a forthcoming school bus and the least number of deaths that you can cause is five. The big question is what do you and are we convinced that utilitarianism gives the right answer.
Secondly, Sandel asks if for instance, there is a munitions factory that is surrounded by ten thousand innocent civilians thus, all will die if you bomb the factory but if you let the factory continue producing more bombs, fifty innocent civilians will be killed. Thus, what do you do, and is utilitarianism the right choice in solving this? In another case, Sandel questions if it is credible to torture a suspected bomber to extract more information on the plans of attack in New York which will have exploded in 24 hours if the police do not intervene. Thus he asks if utilitarianism is the right answer to this case. Lastly, Sandel further questions if it is credible and legal to retrieve information from an innocent member of the family in the case where the suspected bomber acknowledges that the only person who can reveal the position of the bomb is an innocent member of his family.
In the second part, Sandel dwells on the topic, ‘telling the truth’. In this case, he rejects the fact that we have to reduce pain in unhappiness in whatever we do as unhappiness and pains have numerous sources. Furthermore, he states that there are instances when the truth makes somebody unhappy. Thereby, he questions if one has to lie to make the other party happy. He, therefore, comes up with three cases in this argument. First, he asserts if it is right to tell a friend who is fond of singing while taking a shower. He posits that your friend all along has thought his voice is the best but he sings poorly.
