Mill’s Utilitarian Ethical Theory

Mill famously argued that the ethical action is what leads to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Please write an essay about Mill’s utilitarian ethical theory that answers the following questions:

Does utilitarian theory require us to–somehow–have certain knowledge about the future? Can we identify which actions will cause the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people without having certain knowledge of the future?
Can a utilitarian consistently reject as immoral the enslavement of a small group of people whose enslavement brings great happiness to a much larger group of people?
Do either of these two problems (the ‘knowing the future’ problem and the ‘justification of slavery’ problem) mean that utilitarianism is an unsatisfactory ethical theory? Why or why not?

Please ensure that your essay addresses each component of the assigned questions and that your answer is well-organized, uses excellent, college-level prose, and makes judicious use of textual evidence. Your essay should be 600 words long.

Answer preview

Utilitarianism is one of the most common theories that explain about the maximization of utility according to the normative ethics. Normative ethics argues that the maximization of utility is brought about by the proper course of action taken by the participant. This theory has moral foundation and it is centered on humans because it is very much useful in the economic evaluation and analysis. John Mill and Jeremy Bentham are the two well known contributors to this form of consequentialism.In this theory, response to Kant’s statements of criticism is clearly established. This is because Kant criticized this theory by making wrong distinction statements between agent evaluation and act evaluation. In addition, this theory emphasizes on practicing benevolence and it is capable of criticizing all the evident harmful practices which have been regarded as moral virtues in the past (Eggleston, Miller & Weinstein, 2010)………………..

WORD COUNT:576WORDS

FORMAT:APA