Essay on Utilitarian vs Nihilist - 1497 Words

The Batman versus The Joker, your typical good versus evil, a conflict that has long held humanity’s interest. It raises the question, though, of what defines goodness and what makes something evil. Often the differentiation is based on morals, which prove to be the subject of discussion for philosophers when they’re going over ethics. This differentiation is also what can be given credit for why good versus evil is so compelling, in media the line between good and evil is often blurred in some places, requiring the viewer to make their own judgement on the ethics of characters, their actions, and their motivations. Depending on the ethics of the viewer characters can be judged on different criteria, for some it is only the intention of†¦show more content†¦While that is the basics of utilitarian ethics, Bentham does go on to elaborate further on the criterion one must apply to pleasure in order to determine its value. 1. Its intensity. [How much pleasure it b rings.] 2. Its duration. [How long the pleasure lasts] 3. Its certainty or uncertainty [The sureness that the pleasure will result] 4. Its propinquity or remoteness. [How many people it benefits] (Perry 459) Once the value of the pleasure is determined one must also take into consideration the probability that it will be followed by a negative feeling, the number of people for whom the pleasure will be less or more pleasurable, and finally the overall number of people who are affected. To be ethical, one must act in accordance with the principle of utility. A person is ethical if they commit actions that bring pleasure, the more pleasure to the more people the better the action is considered. This form of ethics disregards motive and therefor allows for lying,