Cooper Maxey Philosophy Midterm The act of killing another to preserve not only your life, but the lives of others has been a fundamental right that people have possessed since the beginning of time. From physical, active life threatening attacks to killing another for food on a boat lost at sea, it is simply human nature to end another's life to preserve your own. Had I been on this boat I would have absolutely ended the boy’s life to not only save my own, but the lives of the others on the boat as well. For if I cannot live, I cannot be happy. With all other theories leading towards not only mine, but my other crewmates' untimely deaths, the only true solution to this challenge is to subscribe to the Utilitarian philosophy of maximizing most…show more content… I would then correctly make the analysis that if the boy were to die, he would have nobody other than himself to mourn his passing, whereas myself and my other crewmates have families that would be devastated both emotionally and financially if I were to die. Though this is an incredibly traumatic decision to make, and with the knowledge that the public’s views on my virtue will no longer exist (my virtuous self would either have died with me on the boat, or have ceased to exist on land), I would still be kept in good spirits by the fact that what I did was morally correct. However, before delving into what makes a decision moral, we must look into what morals are. Morals are principles and rules that every person is expected to follow to respect not only themselves, but the community around them as a whole. In the Clark College ethics lecture, one of the principles of morality is, “We cannot act merely to satisfy our own interests, desires, and aims. We must respect others by considering how our actions affect them in a manner that reflects their equal importance.” (Morales,…show more content… The text defines Utilitarianism as, “Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” (Mill, 790). When analyzing this situation, it is easy to recognize that the greatest decision for the group was to kill one, to let the three others live. This ALONE is strong enough to suggest that the boy’s killing was justified, as if he had not died the others would have as well. Furthermore, upon recognizing that the group weighed out who to kill based on family they had at home, and how much they would be missed at home, further signifies that these men made a hard, well thought out moral decision on whether or not to kill, and who to kill. On a base level, utilitarianism provides moral backing to acts such as self defense against a present threat, and against the looming threat of starvation, as seen in our argument. In order to be happy, one must live. For when you are dead, you cannot feel any emotion whatsoever, let alone
