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Virtue Theory and Utilitarianism

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By amiry
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According to Michael Voytinsky, (2011) he stated that Utilitarian theory have the concept that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall happiness. It is therefore a form of consequentialism, which means that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can only weigh the morality of an action after knowing all its consequences. So in other words the consequences in utilitarian includes all of the good and bad produced by the act, whether arising after the act has been performed or during its performance. According to John Stuart Mill, Bentham’s successor which is the leader of the utilitarians, he stated that Utilitarianism is often described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number of people", and is also known as "the greatest happiness principle". This is in the view that no action is in and of itself bad or god, what is important is the state of the world that the action brings about. If the overall happiness is good result, then the action is good. For example, a healthy person walks into a hospital with broken fingers; however in the same hospital three different persons with the same blood type happens to be dying due to organ failure, but with different organs in each case. In this case the utilitarian theory says that it would be justify and more favorable to kill one healthy person for their organs, which therefore can be transplanted into several people dying for an organ which will save multiple lives in the process. So being alive increase the overall happiness since the majority of people lives.
According to Austin Cline, 2007, he stated that Virtue theory place less emphasis on which rules people should follow and instead focus on helping people develop good character traits, such as kindness and generosity. These character traits will, in turn, allow a person to make

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