Study Of Current Arguments On Utilitarianism

This article mainly discussed three current arguments on utilitarianism. Firstly, What is Utility? Utilitarianism always confronts a big problem that is how to define 'utility'. Different utilitarian has different ideas on this question. The early utilitarians use pleasure, happiness as utility; later use incremental value and welfare. Now they use the achievements of preference to define utility. This paper has an analysis and summary of these changes in practice and theory, and then makes a new classification on them by using the psychology system of cognition, emotion, will (behavior). Secondly, which one is right, Act-Utilitarianism or Rule-Utilitarianism? In different period, people hold different standpoint. In my opinion, they both make sense. AU is a traditional form of utilitarianism that represents the basic ideas of this ethical theory, while RU puts new contents into modern form of utilitarianism and makes it better. The third is the debates about Cardinal and Ordinal. Some economists think utility is a cardinal thing that people can distinguish their true feeling about the quantity of utility, and then social utility is also a true thing which comes from summation of individual utility. Some economists don't think so, in their opinion utility is a relative thing, and there is no true social utility at all. However, from the view of philosophy, in people real mind, utility is not only cardinal but also ordinal. This exactly shows the complexities of the concept of utility and the rule of utility. This article has another two big parts: one is about the history of utilitarianism; the other is about the application exploration of utilitarianism. The history part discussed theory and practice of utilitarianism. The application part discussed the relationship between utilitarianism and socialism, and the status of utilitarianism in modern applied-ethics, and the problem of monism and pluralism. Based on the above discussion, this paper holds that in market economy our society needs to make a new understanding of utilitarianism and give it a correct status in our ethical system.