Harvard Justice 2

Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that all actions should be directed towards achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.  This means that if a larger quantity of people benefit in a situation then they will be favored.  Although this is widely accepted in our culture, its terms do not morally fit into place in all situations.  As proposed in the video, if you were to kill just one fat guy as opposed to 5 people, what would you do? Here, more people agreed to let the 5 people die.  The utilitarian theory doesn't apply here because it is not right to involve an innocent person into the situation, that being the fat man.  Although it may help more people, which is great, it can hurt others and that is key when looking at this theory.