Utilitarianism

Ethics is blankly defined as what is right or wrong. However, I think ethics are often very circumstantial, as there are a lot of "what ifs" that can be asked about every moral situation. With that being said, I happen to believe that we are now in a time where we live in society; therefore, our ethics that exist have to exist to satisfy the society. We are at a time where universal truths such as do not murder can't really be applied to many people who are completely disconnected to society. If you are out in the wilderness alone, then your ethics don't really concern majority of the population; therefore, you can have whatever rules you want as long as it doesn't impede on the rest of society. This is where I come to think that I stand with utilitarianism.

I mostly agree with utilitarianism principles because I see a lot of gray area when it comes to ethics. I don't see a black and white, right and wrong to every situation. Circumstances impact every situation that we are put in, and I believe that your actions should limit the amount of pain, and maximize the amount of happiness. There is no pleasing everyone, and that is why there is no list of ethics that everyone agrees on. Therefore, all we as society can ask of anyone is to do their best. If everyone tried to maximize happiness, the world would be a much better place. However, because I see society this way, it is important to always look at every side of each story, and try to put yourself in the shoes of others to truly understand the choices they were forced to make, and to see that always trying to maximize happiness isn't as easy as it sounds.

Trying to please everyone is an impossible task. Therefore, with utilitarianism, I think we should strive to also maximize happiness within ourselves. Although selfishness can be perceived as "bad", if we are forced to make moral decisions we don't believe in just because we think the majority believes it, it will hinder our ability to maximize happiness. In utilitarianism, we strive to make the largest amount of people happy as possible, but that can easily be turned into social control. If we become more concerned with a group of people being happy over ourselves being happy, we will eventually turn into an unbreakable machine. Society will start to follow the majority, and thats what we become, followers; pawns, that are just a piece used in a bigger game of society used to control society. Believing in utilitarianism makes it important to remember that there is a balance that needs to happen between morals to satisfy ourselves, and morals to satisfy society.

Balance is the most important word when it comes to ethics. It is never good to be on an extreme side of a spectrum in any ethical situation. It is part of utilitarianism to compromise, to find that balance. In order to maximize happiness, compromise needs to take place. In order to compromise, we need to be a little selfish, but not to selfish, it is again all balance.