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Ethics

 

            In any given situation it is nearly impossible to make everyone happy when it comes to making decisions, which involve others. Nine out of ten times there is going to be an out come that will result in someone being unhappy or upset. Having these decisions on one's shoulders can be very difficult because, as I can say from personal experience, it is hard to let others down or make them unhappy because of choices you had to make. According to chapter seven in our text there are two paths you can take when deciding how to handle situations that will have outcomes that reflect others. These ideas are Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Although there ideas are similar, they still have difference as to how a situation will turn out, and there are differences as to how they will affect others.
             Act Utilitarianism is a theory which weighs the consequences of an action, both negative consequences as well a positive consequences, for each of the parties involved. This theory focuses more on the happiness of others, rather than the happiness of oneself. According to the theory of Act Utilitarianism, when a person is faced with a situation, he or she must focus on the others, which are involved, and how their decisions will affect these people. They must consider all the possible outcomes of the decision they choose to make. Then the person making the decision must then calculate in the happiness that each outcome will produce for everyone involved, as well as calculating in the least amount of happiness of everyone involved. Finally the decision maker must choose the outcome that will provide the most happiness for everyone, regardless if it is the outcome, which will make them the least happy. .
             There are people who oppose Act Utilitarianism and provide few reasons as to why. The first reason is that they believe that the theory ignores how happiness is being distributed, and only focuses on the total happiness.


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