Intro to Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is one of the ethical theories that I feel in tune with. While "the greater good" can be satired with trampling over the needs on an individual, utilitarianism actually started as a political movement which we are still reaping the benefits of.
The movement started with 18th century Englishman Jeremy Bentham and his pal James Stuart Mill. They basically raised a child together, John Stuart Mill, by their utilitarian ideologies. However, there were repercussions. In one of his recernt biographies John Stuart Mill, mentioned he suffered through depression in his early 20s. Utilitarianism argues that people must act in the way that produce the most happiness for the greatest number of people. This ethical theory is based on hedonism--"what feels good is what is good." Utilitarianism takes this one step further by universalizing this right to feel good. People deserve public education, women deserve the right to have a say in their governors, even homosexual people have the right to be with who they want and animals, who may or may not also feel pleasure and pain, have rights! At the time where the monarchy was still in complete control, these demands were controversial at best.
With time, utilitarianism got refined into two categories: act and rule utilitarianism. While each is attributed to either Bentham or James Stuart Mill, the latter never labeled his theory as "Act Utilitarinism" or Bentham was totally unrelated to it for the following reasons. Benthan modeled a "Hedonic Calculus", a guide to enumerate the pleasure of pain a stakeholde will recieve from an action. The factors are intuitive but if you think too hard, it quickly complicates. The factors involve length, duration, immediacy, and delay of pleasure or pain; including the number of people the act will produce pleasure or pain to and the potential to produce pain. The net utility of an action is equal to the addition of all the numbers from each hedonic calculus.
In contrast, rule utilitarianism, as the name implies, focuses on rules. For an action, we have to find the rule that governs that action and ask ourselves if that rule would produce happiness. For example, in Karena's Dilemma. She's employed to a good-paying company who she finds is cutting corners in disposing dangerous chemicals. One of the choices is she stays quiet about it. Would staying quiet about illegal dumping produce the most happiness? We also apply hedonic calculus to the rule of each possible course of action. The option that must be chosen is the one with positive net utility, the one that will promote the most social happiness.
As mentioned in the beginning, the rule of the great good can trample on individual happiness for the community. One extreme example is the British action comedy Hot Fuzz, where two police men are sent to a small town where people have been dissapering. Spoilers, those people have gone against the greater good. Non-consequentialist theorists like Kant also have a problem with utilitarianism. He doesn't care what the moral action will cause. On the other hand, utilitarianism caused a revolution that brought the ideas of animal welfare, public education, free speech and press, freedom of religion, and rights to groups that previously didn't have them.