Paper 3
Paper 3
Aaron Samson
Pekka
12 March 2007
most benefit to the general welfare . As a result, any action, despite the means or
motive for the action, that does more for the general welfare is automatically
considered morally right . I contest that both means and motive are severely
important in determining the morality of an action, despite the end result of the
action . In this essay, I will show the relevance of this point through the use of
real world cases, and the application of my argument to the Trolley Problems and
Utilitarianism’s claim that means and motive are irrelevant argues for the
general welfare is, are we to assume that it is our moral obligation to promote
happiness and welfare at someone else’s expense? There are many implications if
acceptable to enslave a minority for the benefit of the majority . In this case, the
means certainly do not justify the end; though the general welfare may be
increase .
Samson 2
idea of a person’s rights . If the means and motive are irrelevant in a moral
decision that benefits the general welfare, than it can be assumed that there will
the general welfare . Because there Utilitarianism must be taken case by case, it
leaves no room for consistent standards of rights for people to live by . This not
only means that it is impossible for rights to exist, but that people are mere tools
at the hands of other people in order to increase general welfare and happiness .
Furthermore, if the only thing that mattered was the results of actions, then there
can be no feasible system of laws that apply broadly to cases . I argue this
because if general welfare is the only thing that matters, every case can feasibly
impossible to enforce .
There are many real-world cases where motive and means are considered
in identifying the morality of an issue . The courts are a very strong example; in
every court case, the law is taken into account as well as the severity of the
infraction and the motive . In murder cases there is a strong difference in sentence
Similarly, there are other cases where the same end can have different
Utilitarianism would argue that as long as the general will is not worsened,
Samson 3
Many would agree, however, that money acquired through dishonest practice is
morally tainted and the owner of the money is morally in the wrong .
the survival lottery . In John Harris’s situation, two men are dying of organ
failure, and it would promote the general welfare to kill one healthy man to save
the lives of two sick men, because two saved lives equate to more general
welfare than one lost life . The man should not be killed, however . According to
John Locke, we are all entitled to an inalienable right to life, which would be
denied in the killing of the healthy man to save two other men . Another moral
drawback of killing the man is that by attempting to promote the general welfare,
we are actively killing a person who was not going to die in the first place .
Through a Utilitarian viewpoint, the killing of a human being to save the lives of
two more is perfectly acceptable, because the end result saves the lives of two
men; however the means to this end must be considered when attempting to make
a moral decision . It is true that in many cases, one’s duty should be to maximize
the general welfare, but the general welfare should not be maximized at the
Thompson’s first trolley problem is also a strong example of how the end
does not necessarily justify the means . Thompson’s trolley problem raises the
Utilitarianism is correct in assuming that the general welfare is the only thing of
Samson 4
importance, then the trolley problem would not be an issue; Utilitarianism would
simply argue that there should be no question, and the one person should be
to actively kill a person has been raised . Because that person has as many rights
to life as the rest of the people, his life should not be arbitrarily taken from him .
There is also another version of the trolley problem where the track loops
back . The question in this problem is whether to divert the train to the course
that would kill one person in which case it is the only way to save a number of
people . Thompson argues that this is not morally allowed, for we are not allowed
to use people as a means to an end . Because we are specifically using the person
as a “speed bump” to prevent the trolley from looping back and killing several
more people, that person is a means to an end and, Thompson argues, should not
be killed as such . This is another argument for the idea that means and motive
I personally argue that means and motive are an important moral factor to
undermines the idea that we have rights, and undermines the entire legal system .
There are many cases in which Utilitarianism would argue for the same
punishment for a crime, even though one may have been for a much more just
cause than the other . Similarly, Utilitarianism argues for the idea that it is
Samson 5
argue that if a decision must be made in which the solution is not apparent, the
policy should be not to change the course of action that is currently in place.
Using this argument, situations such as the hospital and trolley problems become
morally apparent. This illuminates the difference between killing and letting die:
in both situations, the solution may not be morally apparent, but if we decide that
we will not change the norm of a situation unless we are sure of what to do, then
actively killing becomes wrong while letting die becomes morally permissible.