ethics and moral reasoning

Moral theories are used to guide people on how to live and carry out their various activities. There are a number of such theories as advanced by various people and one of them is the utilitarian theory. The theory works on the normative theory that a proper course of action would maximize the utility which means that the situation would lead to the total benefits. The concept here is that when the proper action is taken then there is reduced suffering as well as negative consequences. The theory is also based on the concept of economic analysis. The issue like our responsible to animals, how is it a good action and what is the maximum good of doing so? There is no proving that all moral actions lead to maximum benefits and also moral actions do not always lead to justice.

Issues

The utilitarian theory suggests that an action should result to a common good, so what are the maximum benefits of conserving animals? In the cases that these animals die the others too would feel pain like humans do, the problem however is that animals suffer cruelty in the hands of people who lack moral responsibility. Animal’s conservation agents think that people should take care of animals for the common good, but exactly is the benefit of conserving animals? Who would experience the maximum benefits?

We all ask ourselves this question..is it sensible for animals to be conserved at the expense of human beings. Where would be justice in allocating land for animal save keeping when people can not have enough food? When it comes to justice and morality, the two would somehow clash because sometimes one can carry out an immoral action in order to achieve justice.

Utilitarianism theory and the concept of taking care of animals has both negative and positive side, the positive side deals with the moral aspect because it is morally right to make sure that the animals are not mistreated, however it could also be unjust when such action denies some people their livelihood. Many questions are asked about who exactly has the moral authority to claim that they protect animals because even such people eat meat from animals and also wear shoes and belts from animals-dead animals!

Morality and justice are at times mutually exclusive because there are many cases where one lies to get justice; many law suits are won on how much one understands law and not on genuine actions. Back to our story of animal’s cruelty and conservation, it is morally wrong to kill an animal but suppose I was doing it for self defense? There is need for proper definition of right and wrong for the theory of utilitarianism to make sense.

Theory explanation

According to the utilitarian theory, actions should lead to maximum benefits, however it does not mean that only the good results of an action are considered but actually all the other results even the bad ones. The stage of the action is also not limited to the action that it has been performed but also the action that is still being performed can still have results. What matters is the not whether the action is good or bad but rather it whether the results are beneficial, this then would contract the fact that the theory mentions morality since one can still have a moral stand with bad results or an immoral act can still lead to a beneficial situation. For example killing an animal could be immoral but suppose the animal would cause a deadly disease, killing it means that the spread of the disease is prevented.

Application

The utilitarian theory can be applied in many areas of our lives for example if we could use the example of being good to animals. Here being good to animals is morally good and also help in creating employment, therefore the maximum benefits here is job creation, therefore what is important is not actually conserving the animals but rather the results of that action. Another example is killing an animal which threatens the lives of people, here killing the animal is bad but the results are good because killing it prevents the disease from spreading and this is a maximum benefit.

Objection

The theory of utilitarianism could be very practical in the face value of it because as mentioned earlier, one can not have morals and justice running at the same time because they are mutually exclusive. There are many cases whereby people do moral things for bad reasons and there are cases also where people do bad things with good intentions, therefore it would be limiting to use the end results as parameter to measure the morality and justice. Defining justice is also not a very easy thing because natural justice may not be experienced the same way as legal justice.

Conclusion

In order to the theory of utilitarianism to be understood well, there is need to have a clear definition of some of the terms which have been used for example when one says justice, what type of justice do they mean. It is also good to know that moral and good do not always mean the same thing in different set ups, which makes the theory to be not so practical.

References

American Psychological Association. (2014). Committee on Animal Research and Ethics.