What is utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy that promotes activities that bring happiness or pleasure while opposing actions that bring misery or harm. A utilitarian ideology would aim for the welfare of society as a whole while making social, economic, or political decisions. According to utilitarianism, an activity is justified if it leads to the happiness of the largest number of people in a community or group. According to utilitarianism, an action is right if it contributes to create happiness and wrong if it tends to produce sadness, or the opposite of happiness, not just for the actor but for everyone impacted.

Utilitarianism's Three Generally Accepted Axioms state that - 

• The only thing that has inherent value is pleasure or happiness.
• When actions lead to happiness, they are correct; when they lead to despair, they are erroneous
• The happiness of everyone is equally vital.

Although utilitarianism is unquestionably a rational approach to defining good and wrong, it is not without flaws. One of utilitarianism's flaws is that it tends to establish a black-and-white morality.

Utilitarianism can't say if the effects of our acts will be beneficial or negative with any confidence.

Justice and individual rights are similarly difficult to account for under utilitarianism. Let's imagine a hospital has four people who need on organ transplants to save their lives: a heart, lungs, kidney, and liver.

Utilitarian in general seeks to maximize benefit for maximum number of people and reduce any harm. Bentham’s principle of pleasure focuses on the quantity of pleasure people experience while Mill brings out quality and quantity of pleasure thus, Bentham’s utilitarian or principle of pleasure is considered fit for swine. Unlike Bentham, Mill brings out higher order pleasure and lower order pleasure suggesting anything that belongs to lower order doesn’t suit human beings because they are worried with food, sex and other physical pleasures that all animals experience. However, in terms of higher order pleasure, only human beings can attain them. Pleasures related to intelligence, knowledge and anything related to thinking are suitable for human beings.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy that believes in benefiting the maximum number of people. It is based on the principle that action has consequences and it should be ensured that actions have positive consequences which bring maximum benefit to most people. So when it comes to hydrofracking the concept of Utilitarianism would not judge it on the basis of its negative impact but it would rather take into consideration the negative as well as the positive impact and check the balance. If the negative outcomes are less as compared to the positive outcome then it would be considered as a positive action, but if the negative points are far more than the positive point it would be considered as a wrong action. This is what makes this philosophy better than the others that it does not take a side without evaluating the complete situation.

hydrofracking is a process of oil production that has reduced the cost of oil around the USA, but it has also today is a number of environmental challenges. They are serious factors that utilitarianism would have to consider while evaluating the process of hydrocracking. The first factor that needs to be considered there are two large groups of people you have their Stakes involved first there is the group that is wearing the consequences of the problem caused by the hydrofracking, why there is another group which is getting use benefit from the process of hydrofracking. the process of hydrofracking comes with a very serious for the environment. The process of hydrofracking causes air pollution, water pollution, and sometimes gas leaks the consequences of such mishaps have to be faced why people living around the same area in which Fracking takes place. Process of hydrofracking involves the release of a number of gases that are very harmful and toxic in nature gases released by the process has a very negative impact on the health of people living around making them prone to breathing problem, lung infection and other diseases. The liquid injected process of fracking is wash down to the water table this contaminates the groundwater and sometimes the water process nearby the area causing problems for plants and animals as well as the humans living around the space.

On the other side, we have a large number of people living all around the country who depend upon hydrofracking for their daily conditions of oil, the process also helps in making the price of production in control. the prices of oil determine a lot of things light used for transportation of goods all around the country, driving daily to the school and offices. All type of Logistics practices depends heavily upon the price of oil to determine the charges of transporting across the country. this means that the prices for all the utilities will increase due to an increase in the prices of oil. Hydrocracking is to be stopped, also that would mean that the country will depend upon external forces for fulfilling the energy needs. These are some of the issues that will have to be considered for applying the philosophy of Utilitarianism.

Review The Utilitarian Arguments Regarding The Free Market

(A) The utilitarian approach of a free market, is based on the simple concepts of utilitarianism in which, it is clearly established, that the best approach to follow is one which leads to benefits for a larger group of society. The good here which is described refers to the concepts around which the approach was built. It says that a society should engage in activities which lead to the good of maximum number of people.

The reason for advocating free markets in this, which allows for trade to take place without any restrictions is that the forces of market, in the long run would create only those products and services which are high in demand, thus resulting in maximum satisfaction of the larger section of the society.

The approach says that those items which are low in demand would not be produced by the economy because of significantly lower profits. Thus the end result would be greater satisfaction of the larger section of the society which is the core idea of the concept respectively.

(B) One of the biggest critiques of the Utilitarian approach is that the larger section of society if wrong cannot override the interests of the smaller section of people respectively. For example, a large section of the society might want legalization of cannabis in the economy and it may provide great satisfaction to the group, however other issues such as damage to the society need to be given equal weight failing which societies would be difficult to maintain respectively.

(C) While free markets, are an important concept which allows for consumer satisfaction, there are means to realize this without following the utilitarian approach also. The free markets can also be operated under mixed conditions in which governments decide what is prohibited by the markets to produce, and has regulations in place for some items such as defense equipment, cost of essentials etc. while the free market can continue to benefit all sections of the society respectively. Thus in my own opinion no 1 strategy can be followed without looking at its down sides respectively also mixed strategies may be necessary for managing different types of economies and no one strategy can be followed by all respectively.