In: Economics
Using act utilitarianism only, explain why it is morally wrong to renege on a legitimate personal debt.
Directions: Embedded in your double-spaced essay, include a single-spaced table similar to the one below in which you list and weigh the predominant benefits and burdens associated with loan non-payment. Then justify the judgment in terms of the majority of people affected.
Non-payment of a personal debt
Name |
% of Population |
Benefit |
Burden |
Scale (-5 to +10) |
Stakeholder 1 |
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Stakeholder 2 |
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Etc. |
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Etc |
Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, whether an action is morally right or wrong depends entirely on its consequences. An action is right if it brings about the best outcome of the choices available. Otherwise it is wrong. The Good is therefore things (goals, states of affairs) that are worth pursuing and promoting. Utilitarianism defines the Good as pleasure without pain. The Right are the moral rightness (or wrongness) of actions and policies. Consequentialists say that actions are Right when they maximize the Good. So, according to Utilitarianism, our one moral duty is to Maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Utilitarianism says that there is more to life than pleasure; knowledge, virtue and other things are important too. Utilitarianism requires that we consider everyone’s pleasure, not just our own.
The Three Generally Accepted Axioms of Utilitarianism State That
Imagine that Peter is an unemployed poor man in New York. Although he has no money, his family still depends on him; his unemployed wife (Sandra) is sick and needs $500 for treatment, and their little children (Ann and Sam) have been thrown out of school because they could not pay tuition fees ($500 for both of them). Peter has no source of income and he cannot get a loan; even John (his friend and a millionaire) has refused to help him. From his perspective, there are only two alternatives: either he pays by stealing or he does not. So, he steals $1000 from John in order to pay for Sandra’s treatment and to pay the tuition fees of Ann and Sam. One could say that stealing is morally wrong. Therefore, we will say that what Peter has done— stealing from John—is morally wrong.
Utilitarianism, however, will say what Peter has done is morally right. For utilitarians, stealing in itself is neither bad nor good; what makes it bad or good is the consequences it produces. In our example, Peter stole from one person who has less need for the money, and spent the money on three people who have more need for the money. Therefore, for utilitarians, Peter’s stealing from John (the “means”) can be justified by the fact that the money was used for the treatment of Sandra and the tuition fees of Ann and Sam (the “end”). This justification is based on the calculation that the benefits of the theft outweigh the losses caused by the theft. Peter’s act of stealing is morally right because it produced more good than bad. In other words, the action produced more pleasure or happiness than pain or unhappiness, that is, it increased net utility.
Utilitarians’ concern is how to increase net utility. Their moral theory is based on the principle of utility which states that “the morally right action is the action that produces the most good”. The morally wrong action is the one that leads to the reduction of the maximum good. Similarly, it is morally wrong to renege on a legitimate personal debt.